Hello there!
Welcome to the first installment of my blog. This post will split into two main talking points. First I’ll be talk about the process of what went into creating this website, specifically the resources I relied on and all the obstacles I encountered during deployment. The second topic will be I’ll also use used and how and my future plans for the blog, both in the short term and the long term.
Quarto Blogs - How to make a blog with data science skills.
How do I make a website?
Blogging in the data science space has become increasingly popular in the last few years. They provide a great space for people to create meaningful space to explain topics, create tutorials, and interact with others. My main reason for wanting to create a blog was to have a place on the internet to show off what I’ve worked on. Not only did I want to create a repository for my projects online I wanted to make something I can document the things I work on and hold myself accountable to finishing them.
HOWEVER, creating a website on my own seemed daunting. I needed to decide the framework for the UI, where to host the website, and what programming language I was going to use to make all this. As someone with limited knowledge in this area, my first instinct was to turn to my friends in Computer Science for guidance. Little did I know, their advice made it even more confusing. That when I decided to do what I usually do when I’m stuck: copy other data scientist.
Getting away with using skills I aleady have.
In hindsight, looking at what others in my field use to host a blog makes perfect sense. Most data scientist are like me and have little no experience building a website. And so I searched for a way to build a website using the skills I already know and Albert Rapp’s blog post about starting a Quarto Blogs He created a simple to follow tutorial on how to use Quarto to build a website R. This was perfect for me since R is what I know best and never would have thought that I could use R to build a great website.
I’m not going to dive into the details of my website building process, I would much rather share all the resources I used along the way. Albert Rapp’s Tutorial is top notch and there’s no point regurgitating an amazing tutorial as my own. Instead of that, I will share a couple other quarto websites I came across my research. I took inspiration from all of these websites and incorporated different aspects into my own.
Albert Rapp’s Blog Post
Albert’s blog post, The ultimate guide to starting a Quarto blog, is a step-by-step tutorial on how to set up a quarto blog, while offering some blogging tips on the side. If you have experience using R, you’ll likely navigate the website-building process smoothly.
While Albert’ provides extensive information on setting up a Quarto blog, one topic he doesn’t touch upon is hosting your plot on Github Pages He talks about how to set up hosting on Netlify, but personally I find Github Pages to be an easier alternative, especially if you’re new to hosting websites.
Louise E. Sinks’ Quarto Blog
Louise’s blog gave me the idea to host the website on github pages. While I’ve used it in the past to share HTML files, it never occurred to me to host an entire website on it. Additionally, I was impressed by how Louise structured her site, particularity the inclusion of an About Me and Current Projects section that highlight her work experience and projects.
Samamtha Csik’s Quarto Blog
The main takeaways from Samantha’s website for me were the striking aesthetic themes from her article, Why create presentation slides about blogging when you can just blog about it instead?. I plan to stylize my own website with custom colours, fonts, and my own personal flair. Additionally, Samantha’s post also delves into enhancing blog posts with elements like as citations and bibliography, which I’m eager to add to my own content.
My plans for this blog
This section’s existence is to primarily hold myself accountable. By creating this blog, I aim to boost my motivation to complete projects and showcase them here. My ultimate goal is to one day create high-quality resources that I can rely on to reacquaint myself with a tool or technique. This way, I’ll have a valuable repository of knowledge at my fingertips.
For the moment, I plan on making blog posts about areas I’m currently interested in. Recently, I’ve been working a lot in R shiny and I would love to create some short tutorials on specific challenges I’ve faced. I believe tutorial-based content thrives on blogs, and its aligns with what O ,most interested in creating.
Another thing I plan to post about are my weekly Tidy Tuesday submissions. Tidy Tuesday is a fun exercise once a week where you create a visualization for a given data set. If you’re looking for some interesting data visualization, I highly recommend checking out the #TidyTuesday on twitter.
On the side, I have plans to incorporate custom HTML and CSS elements to the website to make it more personalized. Although, I wouldn’t call myself an expert in either, I’m confident I’ll be able to figure out how to make something nice and share what I learn along the way.
The final point I’d like to touch upon is how public posting indirectly subjects me to scrutiny, which, surprisingly, I view as a positive aspect. It presents opportunities for valuable learning experiences. Moreover, it opens up channels for interaction with fellow professionals in the field, providing me with a chance to absorb knowledge from them. In essence, this blog is just one big learning experience.
Final Remarks
The journey of creating a Quarto blog has been a fun experience for me. I now have a platform for which I can showcase my work, as well as a place to force myself to uphold quality. If you’re on the fence about making one, I would say go for it since its approachable and worth the effort.
Citation
@online{jutha2023,
author = {Rahim Jutha},
title = {My First Blog Post},
date = {2023-09-05},
url = {https://rjutha.github.io/posts/First-Post/},
langid = {en}
}