
Ask HN: What are some great personal blogs/portfolios? - buildlove
I&#x27;ve been considering creating a personal website where I can post software projects I&#x27;ve done and write blog posts about them.  I&#x27;ve found a couple inspirational engineers that produce a lot of interesting projects and content on their personal pages, but I&#x27;m sure there&#x27;s a ton of people who have great blogs that I&#x27;ve never heard of.<p>Who are some of your favorites?
======
jefflombardjr
At the risk of sounding pompous. I really like my portfolio site:
[https://jefflombard.com/](https://jefflombard.com/).

Why? I built it for myself. Not for what I thought recruiters/employers wanted
to see. I simply wanted a place to collect some of the projects I work on. And
more importantly one that captured my personality a bit. It's not perfect, I
look at it and see a ton things I'd refactor. But it get's people to laugh or
start a conversation about something I've done. That to me makes it all worth
it.

My $0.02: Don't build a portfolio site because you think you need one, build
one if it serves a purpose for you. i.e. learning a new skill, organizing your
work, or just having fun. I think the results are much more interesting that
way. (Also, don't be afraid to iterate. I think this is the 5th one I've
attempted to make)

~~~
elhudy
As a non-coder it feels like the learning curve for building a website
portfolio is super high - even though I am told by coders that it is not.
Could anyone lend some guidance on where to start?

~~~
sotojuan
I mean, if you really want the easy way out, just pay Squarespace or another
WSIWYG website builder. That's what a lot of my artist and photographer
friends use.

~~~
rchaud
That's what I was going to suggest. If you're a non-coder who needs a
portfolio site, you already have a body of work ready to show. Put that up on
a Squarespace site with a nice template instead of wasting time going through
HTML/CSS video courses to create one from scratch.

If you're genuinely interested in building from the ground up, definitely go
ahead. But if that's not really your goal, you will almost certainly be
disappointed with your first site. HTML/CSS courses don't cover design
(typography, element spacing, color palettes), so you'll look at your site,
you'll know it's ugly but you won't know why. And you won't want to put it
online, thereby wasting even more time.

Don't do that. Let your work speak for you, and don't feel embarrassed about
using a template. Your audience cares about the quality of your content only,
they will be completely oblivious to what is happening behind the scenes.

------
otras
Highly recommend patio11's site and blog:
[https://www.kalzumeus.com/](https://www.kalzumeus.com/)

His post on salary negotiation should be mandatory reading for all software
engineers: [https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-
negotiation/](https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/)

~~~
WestCoastJustin
Not only his site, but his comment history is also a gold mine too.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=patio11](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=patio11)

He has helped countless people by giving great advice. I'd really suggest
reading his "You Can Probably Stand To Charge More" posts. This should be
essential reading for any contractors. This personally helped me double my
income.

Read here:

[https://www.kalzumeus.com/2006/08/14/you-can-probably-
stand-...](https://www.kalzumeus.com/2006/08/14/you-can-probably-stand-to-
charge-more/), [https://www.kalzumeus.com/2015/05/01/talking-about-
money/](https://www.kalzumeus.com/2015/05/01/talking-about-money/), and
[https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/consultin...](https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/consulting_1)

~~~
patio11
Thanks, that made my morning!

~~~
WestCoastJustin
Honestly, thank you! Just checked my email. I chatted with you all the way
back on Oct 17-22, 2014!

------
ctnb
Julia Evans' blog is one of my favorites: [https://jvns.ca/](https://jvns.ca/)

~~~
josephmosby
Seconded. Julia's blog looks nice, has great explanations, and did a LOT for
me as a junior developer about feeling confident in all the things that I
didn't know at the time but was excited to learn.

------
yantrams
Here are some relatively lesser known blogs that I can recommend, apart from
the usual suspects (worrydream, John Baez etc.)

[https://jeremykun.com](https://jeremykun.com)

[http://colah.github.io](http://colah.github.io)

[https://mathwithbaddrawings.com](https://mathwithbaddrawings.com)

[https://www.allendowney.com/blog/](https://www.allendowney.com/blog/)

And yeah I finally decided to inject some character into my personal website
and spent a couple of days wrangling with css and made this ---
[http://linkdot.link](http://linkdot.link) . Not much content really though
and it is mostly probability puzzles that I solve every now and then.

Edit: Formatting

~~~
kickscondor
Love your site - ty for sharing.

~~~
yantrams
Just checked your personal website. So glad to have stumbled upon it. Been a
while since I've some come across something so refreshing. Thank you!

------
The_Hoff
[https://blog.jessfraz.com/](https://blog.jessfraz.com/) is my favorite
depiction of pure passion for software. Deep dives, home hacking, intros to
topics… Jess is great

------
hsrada
My favorite is [http://worrydream.com/](http://worrydream.com/)

Here's a twitter thread containing some 'quirky' personal websites, not quite
portfolios though.

[https://twitter.com/michael_nielsen/status/10026747950313267...](https://twitter.com/michael_nielsen/status/1002674795031326720)

------
daleco
I'm on the same boat, here are some UX Designers portfolios that I found
interesting and bookmarked. Even if it's a different profession, you may find
inspiration there:

[http://jaredgranger.com/](http://jaredgranger.com/)

[https://danielkorpai.com/#work](https://danielkorpai.com/#work)

[https://katiemacoy.com](https://katiemacoy.com)

[https://www.vanschneider.com](https://www.vanschneider.com)

[https://heyshawn.co](https://heyshawn.co)

~~~
skilled
I burst out laughing while reflecting on how good the Tobias van Schneider
design is. The use of typography is absolutely marvelous. Thanks for sharing!

~~~
flaviocopes
The page design is absolutely amazing, although its weight is 33MB.

Which makes me think, where do we draw the line in terms of web page size?
What's acceptable as of 2019? Also considering mobile?

~~~
rchaud
> Which makes me think, where do we draw the line in terms of web page size?

We look at the business case. TVS' website would be a disaster if it was
targeted at the general public, with millions of hits each day. But it's not.
His work on Spotify however does have to be optimized for that audience.

His personal site however can be whatever. It's showcased on industry sites
like awwwards.com and the like, and those sites are all form, no function. In
this environment, Pretty = useful, because it makes his work more noticeable,
which is good for getting consulting work.

------
cblades
Jeff Atwood's blog is great and still (very infrequently) updated.

[https://blog.codinghorror.com](https://blog.codinghorror.com)

------
zawerf
Probably one of the most unique designs for a personal blog I have ever seen
(the animated page headers, page transitions, and a lot of genuinely great
articles and talks): [https://acko.net](https://acko.net)

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
Wittens' posts on culture in tech and the rise of postmodernism are especially
important. Storms and Teacups is excellent, and I'm pleased to see he has a
more recent one too.

[http://acko.net/blog/storms-and-teacups/](http://acko.net/blog/storms-and-
teacups/)

[http://acko.net/blog/falling-into-faith/](http://acko.net/blog/falling-into-
faith/)

------
bluetidepro
Do a quick search here on Designer News:
[https://www.designernews.co/](https://www.designernews.co/) (it’s like HN but
more design focused). They have hundreds of posts of amazing portfolios and
personal sites. You’ll get a ton of inspiration there.

------
trulyrandom
I really enjoy Drew DeVault's blog:
[https://drewdevault.com](https://drewdevault.com)

------
tpaschalis
Dan Luu is _really_ great. [1]. He also has a "list of programming blogs"
which lead me to find even more interesting ones [2].

[1] [https://danluu.com/](https://danluu.com/)

[2] [https://danluu.com/programming-blogs/](https://danluu.com/programming-
blogs/)

------
cyanoacry
I highly recommend Nayuki's site:
[https://www.nayuki.io/](https://www.nayuki.io/)

Lots of content (made mostly for themselves), but the writing style is pretty
nice and there's a large variety of projects.

------
seddin
[https://flaviocopes.com/](https://flaviocopes.com/) should be here too

~~~
flaviocopes
Thank you for the mention!

------
mdolon
I'm a fan of Patrick Collison's blog:
[https://patrickcollison.com/](https://patrickcollison.com/)

And I use my personal site
([https://www.mdolon.com/](https://www.mdolon.com/)) for sharing projects and
writing, the design is based on a free Jekyll theme that I've customized.
You're welcome to build on it if you'd like:
[https://github.com/mdolon/mdolon.github.io/](https://github.com/mdolon/mdolon.github.io/)

------
_mrmnmly
Following @jefflombardjr example, I would like to share an example of my
personal website: [https://lukaszkups.net](https://lukaszkups.net) .

Why do I like it? Because I've literally built it by myself from scratch -
starting on design (all the graphics, even the map in experience tab) to the
static site generation tool that I use to manage content (will release it soon
as my first truly open source project).

Btw. Any feedback will be highly appreciated.

~~~
bobbydreamer
Like the multicolored texts in the homepage. Good Colors choice. I like bright
Colors but if you are going to be seeing it a lot better to go with Colors
that doesn't spoil the eyes and page designs get darker over time.

------
ArtWomb
The OG [https://joshuadavis.com/](https://joshuadavis.com/)

Not engineering, but poetry. Circa 2004. I thought it was so novel back in the
day. Maintain a site just to self publish ;)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20050324004506/http://geegaw.com...](https://web.archive.org/web/20050324004506/http://geegaw.com/)

------
amrshafik
This portfolio showcase page doesn't contain software project blog posts per
se but has a lot of solid designer portfolio examples that might be
interesting to check out:
[https://www.semplice.com/showcase](https://www.semplice.com/showcase)

------
deepaksurti
[https://www.michaelfogleman.com](https://www.michaelfogleman.com) discussed
here
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14445587](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14445587)

------
valleyjo
This one is from my coworker. One of the best engineers I have ever worked
with. It amazes me how they can be so productive at work and be so prolific
with this blog. It goes back a log time.

[http://writeasync.net](http://writeasync.net)

------
uxisnotui
Ask and ye shall receive...self promos! My blog is a smattering of personal
development and increasingly more about content strategy as I try to find a
niche.

[https://www.ozchen.com/fuck-balance/](https://www.ozchen.com/fuck-balance/)

[https://www.ozchen.com/hanlons-razor/](https://www.ozchen.com/hanlons-razor/)

[https://www.ozchen.com/what-is-content-strategy-
definition/](https://www.ozchen.com/what-is-content-strategy-definition/)

To my own surprise, it was through writing that I landed gigs in UX, UI and
content strategy, and now parlayed into a full time content strategy job.

------
xena
Self-promotion: [https://christine.website](https://christine.website) powered
by [https://github.com/Xe/site](https://github.com/Xe/site)

~~~
kickscondor
Looks great. Super solid palette. I like the raw markdown colored. Keep
writing - you're doing good.

------
felipetavares
[http://ctrl-c.club/~philips/](http://ctrl-c.club/~philips/)
[https://felipetavares.com](https://felipetavares.com)

~~~
kickscondor
Oh man - love the bullshit stories section! Great stuff.

------
hollaur
Here's some of my favorites, pulled from this list of 12:
[https://www.thevectorimpact.com/personal-brand-
examples/](https://www.thevectorimpact.com/personal-brand-examples/)

\- [https://jackmcdade.com/](https://jackmcdade.com/)

\- [http://rog.ie/](http://rog.ie/)

\- [http://sarahcpr.com/](http://sarahcpr.com/)

\- [http://laurenholliday.com](http://laurenholliday.com) (Mine)

------
seanwilson
I revamped my portfolio/freelance page recently if anyone wants to borrow any
ideas from it or has any feedback:

[https://www.seanw.org/](https://www.seanw.org/)

I tried to get all the important details on a single page and isolate the tech
jargon to appeal to non-technical clients. I personally found and had non-
technical friends agree with me that a lot of developer portfolios focused too
much on the tech (e.g. "I'm a Node developer who loves React!") or go into too
much detail about project specifics so I tried to avoid that.

~~~
danieltorre
This looks great. You're spot on with the feedback you've received about
technical jargon and I think you've struck a great balance.

I like the single page and I think the content fits nicely. But, I'd be lost
with more content on a single page—in terms of navigation and keeping a mental
model of what I've seen.

------
xparadigm
Whooa did you see this guy's website:
[http://sakibccr.com/](http://sakibccr.com/) This is awesome! (Just kidding.
It doesn't contain anything yet.)

But this is a really nice website:
[https://mango.pdf.zone/](https://mango.pdf.zone/) Especially this post:
[https://mango.pdf.zone/operation-luigi-how-i-hacked-my-
frien...](https://mango.pdf.zone/operation-luigi-how-i-hacked-my-friend-
without-her-noticing)

------
spiralganglion
I'll throw my hat into the ring: [http://ivanish.ca](http://ivanish.ca)

What makes my site interesting is that.. I work in web dev and graphics, so I
got to have some fun combining the two for my portfolio. I'd love to see more
programmers taking advantage of web technologies to make their portfolios more
visually interesting, and playful.

As much as Flash caused headaches and was a thorn in the side of the open web,
there sure were a lot more interesting portfolio sites in the Flash days than
there are now.

Thanks for creating this fun thread!

------
barrowclift
If self-promotion is allowed in this context, I'd like to suggest my own
website as a good example: [https://barrowclift.me](https://barrowclift.me)

~~~
reacweb
I love it. My minimalistic blog is build using pandoc. Would it bother you if
I plagiarized your blog styles.

------
osamagirl69
Some interesting hardware sites I have come across. No nonsense, interesting
content, etc

[http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/](http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/)
[http://omeganaught.com/](http://omeganaught.com/)
[http://krazerlasers.com/](http://krazerlasers.com/)
[http://www.etotheipiplusone.net/](http://www.etotheipiplusone.net/)

------
hprotagonist
i’ve been looking to rediscover a particular tech blog for a while. It’s
formatted to look like it was written in LaTeX. i think it’s even two-column
but i can’t recall.

unrelatedly, eric lippert always has fun stuff. “Wizards and Warriors” a five
part series was a revelation: [https://ericlippert.com/2015/04/27/wizards-and-
warriors-part...](https://ericlippert.com/2015/04/27/wizards-and-warriors-
part-one/)

------
perfect_wave
I've been following Robert Heaton's blog for a while:
[https://robertheaton.com/](https://robertheaton.com/)

------
jamietanna
I'll also post my own site, which I do a lot of personal technical blogging on
- [https://www.jvt.me](https://www.jvt.me)

~~~
bobbydreamer
Nice.

------
iancmceachern
I'm going to go the other way with my comment and ask for feedback on my
portfolio page.

[https://www.iancollmceachern.com](https://www.iancollmceachern.com)

Please feel free to email feedback to the contact info on my page or post it
here. Thank you in advance.

(Edited to add that I'm a hardware product designer, providing mechanical and
systems engineering services for medical devices and other mission critical
hardware)

~~~
stingrae
Here were my first impressions: \- It is very gray. The blog looks much better
with it's white space.

\- I don't get what the shopping cart is for.

\- The header isn't centered.

\- The font is very heavy feeling.

\- I like the contact page. I feel like that should be your main page, with
the side bar links moved to be across the top of the page.

I'd also like to get feedback on my personal website:
[https://raemond.com](https://raemond.com)

------
navchatterji
I built my personal website using Google Docs.
[https://navchatterji.com/](https://navchatterji.com/). This was a fun weekend
experiment where the aim was to build a quick, usable website (in this case a
blog) and host it without having to type in a single line of HTML/CSS or
terminal command. The instructions on how I made it is near the bottom.

------
brimtown
Dan Abramov's is very good: [https://overreacted.io/](https://overreacted.io/)

------
bemmu
Derek Sivers has a great blog:
[https://sivers.org/blog](https://sivers.org/blog)

------
diessica
Not really great but in a hope someone might think it is, this is one is mine:
[https://diessi.ca](https://diessi.ca) Built it myself, I am a Front-end
Developer anyway.

Began writing about programming but honestly now I just write about whatever I
want. Last post was about my sensory depravation experience so I expect
anything.

------
saddington
I've been blogging about my life as a software engineer, dad, husband,
entrepreneur, and now (new!) youtube vlogger for a long time. blogging 18
years, actually: [http://john.do/](http://john.do/)

my hope is to simply share what i'm working on and share how those things are
actually working.

------
kickscondor
I'm going through these and reviewing some here:
[https://www.kickscondor.com/hrefhunt/](https://www.kickscondor.com/hrefhunt/).
Love it when these threads come up. Keep posting - even if this post is days
old, I'll look at all of it.

------
jakelazaroff
It's finished, but the prog21 archives have some real gems:
[https://prog21.dadgum.com](https://prog21.dadgum.com)

I also recently read through Eevee's blog and greatly enjoyed it:
[https://eev.ee](https://eev.ee)

------
gammarays_
I really like [http://hergert.me/](http://hergert.me/)

------
mrstefan
I recommend Sam Altman's blog. Especially his post about productivity:
[http://blog.samaltman.com/productivity](http://blog.samaltman.com/productivity)

Everytime I want to do something meaningful, I think about Sam Altman and I
feel inspired.

------
yuy910616
dan wang. he wrote why so few people major in CS. interesting dude.
[https://danwang.co/](https://danwang.co/)

bill gurley, investor [http://abovethecrowd.com/](http://abovethecrowd.com/)

~~~
wenc
I discovered Dan Wang through Tyler Cowen's Marginal Revolution Blog (a great
blog for folks with omnivorous interests).

Dan seems to be a deep thinker (philosophy major). He doesn't write about
engineering so much, but what he does write about he goes deep.

~~~
yuy910616
that's exactly how I found him... Did you major in Econ or something?

~~~
wenc
Not really. I have no econ background at all but I still find Tyler's blog
interesting.

~~~
yuy910616
That's great to hear! I always thought only econ people read that blog. Did
you find stratechery through MR yet? If not...Ben Thompson is worth a read for
sure.

~~~
wenc
I've known about Stratechery for some time. I understand the content is very
good, but my interests aren't quite in that space.

------
arethuza
Fabrice Bellard: [https://bellard.org/](https://bellard.org/)

For non-software projects: Tatjana J. van Vark
[http://tatjavanvark.nl/projects.html](http://tatjavanvark.nl/projects.html)

------
Hmahal
Hey personally love this one. It is colourful and expresses my skills and
experience in an Amazon way [https://uicard.io/products/hugo-
uilite/](https://uicard.io/products/hugo-uilite/)

------
justmyfreak
[https://justmyfreak.com](https://justmyfreak.com)

My own website. I use medium as it is easy write on. Also, I don't need to
hustle with template, UI, etc. Pardon me since I didn't update the content for
like 2 years.

------
Jhndb
I found this quite fun, not sure if it still works.

[http://blog.soulshake.net/2016/04/command-line-
resume/](http://blog.soulshake.net/2016/04/command-line-resume/)

------
larrywright
Great Ask HN. I plan on looking through all the links here for ideas.

I just restarted my blog after a few years away:
[http://larrywright.me](http://larrywright.me) \- feedback appreciated.

------
h0p3
[https://philosopher.life/](https://philosopher.life/)

I'm uploading my mind into my wiki, and so, of course, I like my wiki in
general.

------
vankessel
Shameless self promotion [https://vankessel.io](https://vankessel.io)

Still have work to do on it, but I would love to hear feedback.

------
scott113341
[https://brandur.org/articles](https://brandur.org/articles)

Very clear technical writing, mostly about web technologies.

~~~
ar_lan
I've long used his site as an inspiration as well. It's just pretty clean and
interesting.

------
tekknolagi
If you're interested in PL and blogging, mine night be of use to you.

[https://bernsteinbear.com](https://bernsteinbear.com)

------
taprun
I run a site focused on a very narrow niche (pricing strategy)...
[https://taprun.com](https://taprun.com)

------
JunaidBhai
Design-oriented: [http://draftss.com/portfolio](http://draftss.com/portfolio)

------
beliu
I am a fan of [https://dave.cheney.net/](https://dave.cheney.net/)

------
azevedol
[https://www.lucasazevedo.com](https://www.lucasazevedo.com)

------
cuphalfempty
[http://www.socialhacker.com](http://www.socialhacker.com)

------
oysterfish
[http://stevelosh.com/](http://stevelosh.com/)

------
mandeepj
sharing my blog - [http://mandeepjanjua.com](http://mandeepjanjua.com)

I like to blog about as many things as you come across in life. Because why
not? We just don't do only programming

------
badatshipping
Slate Star Codex: [https://slatestarcodex.com/](https://slatestarcodex.com/)

Martin Shkreli: [http://martinshkreli.com/](http://martinshkreli.com/)

Casey Muratori: [https://caseymuratori.com/](https://caseymuratori.com/)

------
mhdhn
scripting.com by Dave Winer, who pioneered web logs, podcasts, outlining, RSS,
et al

------
nabeards
matthewrayfield.com is one of my faves. Old-school web with fun tech.

