DEV Community

Cover image for Personal Website development advice
Bartholomew Allen
Bartholomew Allen

Posted on

Personal Website development advice

Alright so I have decided to re structure the original website that I created with just plain HTML/CSS and JavaScript to now use React! I want to know everyone's opinion on how I should approach this project since I haven't been able to make much progress with it from being so distracted by all the cool effects that you can do with JavaScript and CSS. I want to change my approach for how I build this instead of trying to code things out first and not write down the basics of the website or the web flow. Here are the following questions I am curious to know what everyone thinks

Is it worth keeping my adobe cloud subscription for this project?

if Yes to the previous question what are the best practices for utilizing adobe into building my personal website?

Is it worth while to take the time to mock out the design first before doing any coding? Or should I do basic web flow first before mocking up?

I love using figma but I also really want to tryout adobe XD but want to know if I should stick to figma or test the waters with adobe XD

What are good resources to use for making my website responsive?

Top comments (6)

Collapse
 
lysofdev profile image
Esteban Hernández

I personally like free stuff so I would just stick to Figma XD.

With that aside, keep in mind that React is a component based architecture so focus on identifying segments of your existing site that would make good candidates for a component. Avoid giant components. These become impossible to maintain in the future. Also, think about whether your application will require a global state management solution like Redux (or Context) and plan that out before hand.

Collapse
 
ballen2713 profile image
Bartholomew Allen

Thank you for your advice! I most likely will stick with free side of things so I can save myself money XD. As for React I am fully aware that it is component based, which is what drew me to it. The way it handles and creates components compared to Angular is beautiful and way easier for me to keep my code consistent. As for Redux I briefly touched upon it this past semester but I will do some thorough research to incorporate in my planning to see if I need to use it.

Collapse
 
lysofdev profile image
Esteban Hernández

Great to hear and weigh your options aside from Redux. I personally prefer an Angular Services style approach using Contexts to provide singleton service objects over Redux which can be hard to reason with in certain edge cases. It really depends on what you're most comfortable with since you can achieve the same functionality.

Collapse
 
kevinoca profile image
Kevin Oca

Hello! since it's your personal website i would like to recomend to you "Gatsby Js" it's a framework for simple/small landing pages or even Web Apps with all the power of React js at it's core.

I'm a pure dev so i can't help you too much with design or tools like that.

Good Luck! and remember to give us the url when it's available :D

Collapse
 
alyatek profile image
alyatek

sorry

Collapse
 
ballen2713 profile image
Bartholomew Allen • Edited

You are fine after reading the question I saw how silly it was to ask plus it had nothing to do with development or helped anyone on this site. It was nothing you did I promise! 😃