---
title: "Timeline of akpain.net"
showToc: true
---
# Timeline of akpain.net

## Generation 1: plain HTML and free hosting

My first domain, `lightningsnap.com`, was registered in 2018 when I was 14 years old. The name had no real meaning - it was loosely based off of my online tag at the time. The site itself was not much more than a landing page hosted using GitHub Pages.

In December 2018, as I change my tag online, I change my domain. The actual domain isn't included here because I don't want people digging up my adolescent self's regrettably public internet usages, but generally the site remains similarly barebones.

In March 2019, spurred on by the free credits in the GitHub student developer pack, I move my site to a DigitalOcean droplet. It felt very special!

In August 2019, I move to change my tag again, and get rid of the nameless domain. I was semi-regularly changing tags at this point in time, so I opted to get a domain based on my real-life name - I got `tdpain.net`.[^1]

At some point in early 2019, I moved to using a template called Read Only made by [HTML5 Up](https://html5up.net/), who make very pretty static site templates. I credit that template with making having a good-looking website just accessible enough that it got me really hooked on having a website. [AJ](https://aj.lkn.io/), if you're reading this, thanks :)


```{figure} readonly.png
:alt: Screenshot of the site that was based on the Read Only template

The Read Only version of the site
```

Alas, all good things must come to an end, and during the 2019 Christmas holidays, I began rebuilding site from scratch and moved away from Read Only, wanting something a little more home-grown. Upsettingly, despite being one of my favourite designs to date, this verison of my site has been mostly lost to time. The best copy of it I have is this, a screenshot I found in Google Photos that shows the sorry state of its mobile support:

<center>

```{figure} borkedmobile.png
:alt: Screenshot of my favourite version of the site, showing a broken layout on mobile
```

  </center>

Either way, that version didn't last long. 10 months later, in October 2020, the below version was deployed, loosely inspired by [Dan Brown's site](https://web.archive.org/web/20201101051235/https://danb.me/) at the time. This version used PHP to randomly change the colour of the "cutting board" section.

```{figure} cuttingboard.png
:alt: Screenshot of the site that had the cutting board theme
```

## Generation 2: the Go app

Up until July 2021, the cutting board website stays. However, at that point, I decided I wanted a new site that was dynamic could do *✨ stuff ✨*, like displaying the most recent Spotify track I'd listened to and the most recent push I made to GitHub, so I set about on a site rebuild, using Go as a backend. This also came with its own stylistic refresh, seen below.

The website keeps getting minor tweaks until May 2022, when I got fairly involved in the [Yesterweb movement](https://yesterweb.org/) which at the time was a very active community[^2]. This shaped the content and feel of the site and led to it being very heavily worked on for a few months around that time.


```{figure} spotification.png
:alt: Screenshot of the new Go-powered site

One of the earlier versions of the Go site, post-Yesterweb. This was also the iteration of the site where I first used my now-signature #df3062 <span style="color: #df3062">■</span>
```

In June 2022, the site is moved to a new server on Hetzner due to price increase on DigitalOcean.

In March 2023, to address large amounts of technical debt that was causing the site to be near impossible to work on, lots of the site was torn out, rewritten and restructured. Much of the directly Yesterweb-inspired content was removed at this point, though some artefacts remain like my [links](/links) page and the buttons at the bottom of each page, both of which remain in the latest form of the site.

```{figure} newgo.png
:alt: Screenshot of the rewritten Go-powered site

This was also the first design that included the pink border.
```

<details><summary>Click here to see some bonus colourways!</summary>

This version of the site also saw alternate colour schemes! Different properties had different colours - my [reading list](https://pages.tdpain.net/readingList) still uses the blue version and my abandoned Neocities offshoot[^3] was a rather fetching purple.

```{figure} readinglist.png
:alt: Screenshot of the blue reading list theme
```

```{figure} neocities.png
:alt: Screenshot of the purple neocities theme
```
</details>

## Generation 3: the custom static site generator

Come February 2024, I have the itch to do another complete rewrite. This time, I rebuild the whole site from scratch using [a Hugo theme as a base](/credits) and as a static site instead of a Go app. At this point, the Go app is just acting like a static site and is just wasting resources and maintenance effort.

Instead of spending the time and effort to learn how to use a pre-existing SSG, I wrote my own using Python, [Jinja](https://jinja.palletsprojects.com/en), [Mistune](https://mistune.lepture.com/en/latest/) and few other bits and pieces. It was very rewarding, and the most technologically elegant version of the site that has exicted since its inception.

I also take the opportunity to finally move my site to `akpain.net` and my chosen name, which was a long time coming. In August 2020 I changed my name,[^4] in January 2022 I registered `akpain.net` in line with that new name and I finally moved to using it as my primary nearly four years after it was originally registered.

```{figure} ssg.png
:alt: Screenshot of the static site generator site
```

Come December 2024, with Christmas holidays once again on my hands and some extra free time, I decide to *once again* trash the face of the website and rebuild it, not because it didn't look good, but because there were certain bits and pieces that I added that were absolutely bodges and didn't mesh amazingly well with the pre-existing styles. I was butting into the limitations of something else that somebody else built, so this time I worked from scratch, making this version of the first to be built entirely by myself.

This version is the current version of the site. You can view a complete breakdown of the styles at the [style guide](/assets/styleGuide), if you're curious.

```{figure} ssg-dec-2024.png
:alt: Screenshot of the static site generator site
```

---

[^1]: Remember that reasoning. Astute readers will notice that is not the same domain as you're currently using.
[^2]: It no longer is - in January 2023, the leadership took the understandable but highly controversional to close their Discord and soon after shut down their forums. Personally, I think it was a huge and regrettable loss.
[^3]: That was borne out of wanting to share some writing *not* under my deadname. Sorry, did I say deadname?
[^4]: So much for static names. :|