Building this blog wasn’t about choosing the trendiest stack or chasing visual polish. It was an exercise in clarity, maintainability, and real-world trade-offs—the same principles I apply when designing production systems.
I wanted a platform that let me write long-form technical content comfortably, evolve over time, and stay operationally simple. That led me to a combination of Azure infrastructure and modern WordPress block themes.
This post captures what worked, what didn’t, and the lessons that stuck.
Why Azure + WordPress?
I chose Azure because it’s the environment I work in daily. Not because it’s perfect, but because it reflects real constraints: cost controls, security boundaries, observability, and long-term maintainability.
WordPress, despite its reputation, remains one of the most pragmatic content platforms available—especially when paired with modern block themes. It solves the hardest part of blogging well: writing, organizing, and publishing content consistently.
The goal wasn’t to build a “WordPress site.”
The goal was to build a reliable writing surface.
Embracing Block Themes (and Letting Go of Old Habits)
Block themes fundamentally change how WordPress works. Instead of PHP templates and child themes, everything is composed using:
- Templates (Index, Single Post, Search, Archive)
- Patterns (reusable layout sections)
- Blocks (content and layout primitives)
At first, this felt restrictive. Where were the knobs? Where was the CSS?
But over time, that restriction became an advantage.
Block themes force you to think in structure, not overrides:
- What belongs in a template vs a page?
- What should be reusable?
- What should be global vs contextual?
That mental shift mirrors good software architecture.
Designing for Reading, Not Marketing
This blog is optimized for technical reading, not conversion funnels.
That led to a few deliberate decisions:
- Two-column layouts only where they add value
- Sidebars that support discovery (search, tags, archives), not distraction
- No hero banners or call-to-action noise
- Typography and spacing tuned for long reads
Most importantly, I avoided custom CSS unless absolutely necessary. If something couldn’t be expressed using core blocks or theme styles, I treated that as a design smell.
The Sidebar as a First-Class Citizen
One of the more subtle challenges was getting the sidebar right.
In a block theme, sidebars aren’t widgets—they’re layout decisions. I ended up creating a synced pattern for the sidebar and explicitly inserting it into:
- Blog home
- Single posts
- Search results
- Archive pages
This gave me:
- Consistency
- One-place edits
- Clear intent
The sidebar isn’t decorative. It’s a navigational tool for readers who think non-linearly—which most engineers do.
Search, Archives, and Real Content Discovery
Search is often an afterthought on blogs. I treated it as a primary navigation path.
That meant:
- Clean search results
- Scannable excerpts
- Clear hierarchy (title → meta → summary)
Similarly, archives by year and month matter more than categories when content grows over time. They reflect how ideas evolve, not just how they’re labeled.
These are small UX decisions, but they add up.
Azure Lessons: Keep It Boring
From an infrastructure perspective, the biggest lesson was this:
If the blog requires attention, something is wrong.
I avoided:
- Over-engineering
- Custom pipelines
- Premature scaling
Instead, I focused on:
- Predictable costs
- Simple deployment paths
- Observability when things go wrong
A personal blog should fade into the background so thinking can come forward.
What I’d Do the Same Again
- Use WordPress block themes without fighting them
- Keep design minimal and intentional
- Treat content structure as architecture
- Optimize for writing and reading, not novelty
What I’d Do Differently Next Time
- Decide earlier which layouts deserve patterns
- Spend more time on mobile spacing upfront
- Resist the urge to “fix” things that are merely different
Closing Thoughts
Building this blog reinforced something I’ve seen repeatedly in professional work:
Good systems don’t draw attention to themselves. They create space for thinking.
Azure provided a stable foundation. WordPress block themes provided structure. The rest was restraint.
That combination feels right for this space.
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