Emily Kauffman

The Newest Iteration

EmilyKauffman.com (formally intrepidem.com) has, and always will be, my playground for trying out new technologies and languages. The first version was only HTML and CSS, as I attempted to learn the basics of web development. I was on a trip in the southwest, USA between semesters. I took my camping gear, my car, some snacks, and massive XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP for Dummies book. Using that giant yellow book, I was able to create my first website in a tent at Mesa Verde National Park. Every since then, I've been hooked. I started out as an art major and when I switched to Computing & Information Studies, I still found myself trying to combine the two. Without a doubt, my first site was absolute garbage, but I still remember the feeling of elation upon completing it.

Over the years, I've revised designs, learned new technologies, and incorporated more JavaScript. I completed my M.S. at the University of Pittsburgh and worked as a software engineer at various companies. The one thing that has remained the same is that my website has always reflected my current interests and served as a way for me to try things, break things, and show off the cool projects I've gotten to work on over the years.

All in on Remix

In this current iteration, I went full in on Remix. When Remix was announced last year, I bought myself a license for my birthday. It's billed as "a full stack web framework that lets you focus on the user interface and work back through web fundamentals to deliver a fast, slick, and resilient user experience." This is exactly what I was looking for! As a developer, I often find myself gravitating toward custom solutions as a way to understand the underlying technologies of what I'm using. Of course, outside of my hobby projects, this isn't always tenable and so a framework that feels like a "return to the basics" was really attractive.

Around the time I released this redesign, I also celebrated my 30th birthday. I've been a little anxious for the last year leading up to it - have I accomplished enough? Am I "on track" with my career? I felt out of focus and not at all confident in the direction I was heading. A few months ago I started this redesign using Remix and I was really enjoying it, so I joined the Discord channel. It's a large community of people excited to learn and contribute and I want more of that as I go into this next decade. The "tech" themes of my thirties are going to be community, commitment to knowledge sharing and writing, and just making some new friends! It feels appropriate to release this new site as a kick-off.

What's Next?

I have big plans for this site and a lot of that revolves around more content. I plan to write more tutorials and articles and share what I've learned. I'll be adding an RSS feed and hooking up ConvertKit for emails. Don't worry - I don't write enough to spam you, yet! Currently, I'm just using static markdown files for the blog and project files but I'm playing around with moving these to a database (right now, I am not using a database at all).

If you're interested in this site's performance, checkout my Metronome scores here.