John Polacek

I’ve been interested in using Next.js and MDX to take a README markdown file in a Github project and transforming it into something interesting. So I wrote up a markdown document and published it at growth-areas-for-a-software-developer.vercel.app.

I used to be a 4-space tabber. I remember caring enough to use my text editor to convert 2-space to code to 4-space whenever I ran across it. Then I started using Prettier.

You have a project. You want to make a Docs Page. You already wrote documentation in README.md. Do you need to have two copies of your ReadMe? Heck no! Here is a quick tip on how to use the content from your README on your project’s docs page.

A quick look at how I add dark mode to a Next.js site with code examples.

I’ve re-done my website with content authoring in MDX, powered by Next.js. I’ve open sourced a Next.js MDX Blog Starter so you can too.

I reach for Next.js because it scales to what I need it to do. It can build a simple static blog like this one, or a SaaS app with parameterized routing, serverless backet, user auth and an integrated API (see my Hello Next App project for example). I pretty much use it for everything new I’m building on the web these days.

MDX is a powerful tool for authoring content. It gives you everything that authoring your content in markdown does, but with the added superpower of being able to drop in React components at will. For a web developer blog, that’s obviously pretty appealing.

I like to wear dress shirts with matching socks. Sometimes I buy socks in a set and have no shirts that match. How can I find a shirt to match my sock, or a sock to match my shirt? I decided to build a thing. Check it out at colortocolor.com.