Dr Samantha Pendleton
Engineer of data, ontologies, and clusters. Thrower of pots, controllers, and eggs.
Hello World - again!
The original post was in 2023, however is updated as the site has upgrades.
I started this website journey around 2015 for university assignments: writing blogs for modules.
I decided to create my own CSS and index page to better structure my work.
In 2021, midway through my PhD, I progressed onto GitHub pages with Bootstrap and a terrible repo structure.
Now in 2023, I’ve decided to try Hugo.
A few months ago - in 2023 - with COVID, I decided to revamp the site and intended to go with the markdown-file route. Whilst ill with the decision to improve the blog, I had some time off work, so my 5-day isolation weekend turned somewhat productive.
With the exception of some commands, Hugo uses markdowns allowing for many automated features.
My goal was to be simple - I didn’t want to wrangle too much with HTML or design.
After some playing around with the Hugo features - I’ve come to appreciate the autonomy, usability, and markdowns.
To start, I spent hours looking at the theme list - choosing between themes that had features most important to me.
The design was a toughie. Many themes I explored were great, others relied on dependencies, and in the end, I was looking for something quite minimalistic.
I finalised on Monochrome as I liked the minimalistic design and responsiveness.
Though a top contender was PaperMod.
As of 2025, this site is powered by Hugo️ (v0.148.1) & Devise.
I forked the Devise repository (v0.1.0)