After looking for a light weight dev portfolio solution including a de-blog I decided to make my own. Not because I didn't find a pre-existing but because of the fun that comes with coding.

I used WordPress before numerous times for all kinds of projects. WordPress introduced a feature called Portfolio which allows creators to showcase their work. When it comes to designing a personal WordPress theme, things become a little complicated.

Because I wanted to have a unique theme for my portfolio and because I wanted my dev-blog and portfolio to be as JavaScript-free as possible, I had to create my very own theme. Also, I wanted my editor to accept Markdown. While WordPress allows the use of custom themes and plug ins, I wanted my solution to be as light weight as possible. Additionally I wanted a solution that uses files instead of MySQL.

I finally decided to write my own solution: Kowalski. It is a portfolio and dev-blog solution written in PHP using some third-party software (Parsedown, Tonic and GeSHi). Actually, this page is now already running Kowalski. Feel free to contribute to the project!