Simplicity is bea(r)uty
I’ve been checking out Bear’s documentation and its flexibility. The setup is robust — and I didn’t expect it to be as flexible. I was immediately bombarded with ideas, designing multiple layouts, tweaking styles and interactivity. Being a web developer, you can’t help but think of the possibilities and what you can do with it to make your space look different.
Then I recalled why I chose Bear over other services: its simplicity. The format and idea behind a blog does not demand much.
The technical side
A technical property is how light it is — it ensures a great user experience. Performance seems to be an afterthought when computers get more powerful, which reflects Jevons paradox.
To think the Voyager 1 runs on 69 KB of memory, yet there are popular sites out there that need 10k more times just to load their landing page.
I admit I’ve been tempted to over-complicate things through scripting. But I’m trying to hold back that need, and if possible, have no Javascript at all. That being said, I’ve been playing around with fonts and web designing to explore what I want this space to look like.
A human feeling
More importantly: Bear’s primeval design, reminiscent of a website in the early days of the internet, feels human. Even if I was young at that time, I understand how the internet would’ve felt back then — before AI, crawlers and corporations dictating a flow through optimized algorithms.
This is the opposite of what my personal website looks like. Where its intention was to be a playground for my knowledge of web development and design, this space is just focused on the writing.
It is a humble feeling, which is perfect for creating a blog.