import Head from 'next/head' import ExternalLink from '@/components/ExternalLink' import DefaultLayout from '@/layouts/DefaultLayout/DefaultLayout' export default function Home () { return (

Hello!

I'm Aaron, a Brit living in Newcastle-upon-tyne, UK. I work professionally as a Software Engineer, and study languages, history and philosophy in my spare time.

This is my little corner of the web! I've always had a habit of 'lurking' online; I barely interact with the content I consume, and you'll rarely if ever catch me posting or commenting on something. This little site endeavours to encourage me to share a bit more about myself online.

Tech I like

Sites: At the moment, I mainly use node with TS (or JS for small projects) and Next.js to build sites and apps.
Scripts: My go-to for scripting is either Python or JS, mainly because I'm comfortable with these languages, and their library ecosystem usually has everything I need to do what I need to do.
APIs: If I need something more robust for API or back-end architecture than node, I usually go for dotnet core/C# using ASP.NET. A strongly-typed language with an opinionated web framework like ASP.NET helps to keep everything neat and tidy.
Cloud: If I can get away with it, host on a droplet on Digitalocean. If not, my go-to is usually GCP because it's less soul-destroying than Azure and AWS (and I've used it the most)

Where to find me

Letterboxd {' '} is a social platform for film lovers to rate, review, and discover movies, akin to "Goodreads for film."
GitHub {' '} is a web-based platform for version control and collaboration on software development projects. Find out what I've been working on here!
LinkedIn , unfortunately. A social network for professionals.

About this site

www.aaronjy.me is a static site (i.e. a bunch of HTML, JS, CSS and image files) written in JavaScript using Next.js. Tacit is being used as a micro CSS framework, and various smaller bits of custom CSS have been applied on top.

The site is hosted inside a Google Cloud Storage bucket with a load balancer sat in front of it. The load balancer is required as Cloud Storage doesn't support a) custom domains, b) HTTPS out of the box or c) a global CDN solution.

One of the biggest benefits of a website made of simple static files and assets is that I can deploy it easily, almost anywhere, and for very little money. Obviously, hosting cost is mostly relative to the amount of data transferred (i.e. the number of visitors accessing your site and downloading its assets), but I anticipate paying only a few pennies a month as things stand (unless my little site becomes incredibly popular overnight for some bizarre reason...)

) }