Forem: Ujjwal Vivek

This project was a big step for me in terms of finishing something deeply personal, and I hope the open-sourced code provides value or inspiration for your own projects. Feel free to dive in, fork, and contribute! Feedback, Questions and Suggestions ✅

Ujjwal Vivek — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 18:58:30 +0000

Ujjwal Vivek

Jul 25 '25

From 'Coming Soon... Maybe' to Actually Shipping: A 2-Year Dev Journey

#webdev #opensource #react #buildinpublic

Comments 15

3 min read

From 'Coming Soon... Maybe' to Actually Shipping: A 2-Year Dev Journey

Ujjwal Vivek — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 18:17:12 +0000

I Scrapped the 'Perfect' Portfolio Idea and Built This Raw System Instead

We all know the template for the "perfect" developer portfolio.

A polished grid of projects. A "skills" section with satisfying progress bars. A blog that hasn't been updated since 2023.
Clean. Professional. Completely sterile.

I tried to build that. Ghosted versions I lost count of.
It felt dishonest.

Because development isn't clean.
It's messy, it's iterative, and it sometimes breaks at midnight.
So I built a site that reflects that reality.

Context:
v1.0 [boot_sequence]
v1.1 [midnight_patchdrop]

The System in Action:
[ujjwalvivek.com]

The Philosophy & Technical Deep Dive:
[going_open_source.md]

The Raw Code:
[ujjwalvivek/portfolio]

A Dev Log Disguised as a Website

Instead of a portfolio, I built a living system.
A raw dev log that shows the thinking, not just the finished product.

The Terminal isn't an aesthetic. It's my native interface. It's how I think, so it's how you navigate. My raw logs are the content.
The Procedural Backgrounds aren't just eye candy. They're a realtime reflection of a mind that needs to see complex systems in motion.
It launched with bugs. Real users found them. I wrote [midnight_patchdrop] because shipping is a conversation, not a monologue.

What's Built

🧠 4 Procedural Background Generators:

Hologram cubes with 3D projection math
Circuit trees that grow recursively
Psychedelic fantasy patterns
Quantum node networks with Bezier connections

⌨️ Interactive Terminal Footer:

Type help for commands
Try maximumfun / minimumfun for intensity control
run exit triggers a crash screen with hidden dino game (custom cooded 👀)

⚙️ Technical Features:

Custom markdown renderer with KaTeX math support
Fuzzy search with subsequence matching
PDF viewer with theme sync
Accessibility modes (respects prefers-reduced-motion)
and honestly, a lot more things. Curse of a fickle mind.

Code That Reflects a Philosophy

Building honestly means prioritizing the user's experience over a perfect facade.
It means respecting their preferences from the first line of code.

// Simple, powerful accessibility. This is non-negotiable.
const shouldReduceMotion = window.matchMedia('(prefers-reduced-motion: reduce)').matches;

if (shouldReduceMotion) {
// Turn off the chaos. Respect the user.
setLowChaosMode(true);
}

This isn’t a checklist feature. It’s a design principle.
The site doesn't track you, flash cookie banners, or beg for your email. It's built for contact, not conversion.

So, What's the Point?

This is an argument for building personal sites that are actually... personal.

Sites that reflect our real development journey, the curiosity, the breakthroughs, the late-night fixes.
Not just a sanitized list of buzzwords for recruiters.

It's a risk. It's not for everyone.
But it's honest.

The codebase includes real-world patterns for:

Canvas performance optimization
Accessibility in animations
Modular procedural systems
Terminal-style interfaces
Theme-adaptive components

Full technical breakdown lives in this [blog: going_open_source.md] with ASCII diagrams, math, code, confessions, all of it. It's a LONG read.

So I'll ask you:

Does your portfolio reflect who you are as a developer, or just who you think employers want to see?

Drop a thought in the comments. I'm genuinely curious.

MIT licensed. Feedback, Suggestions, PRs welcome.
Built for learning and sharing.

Took 2 years to ship this simple website. Not because of tech. And I'm really proud of it.

Ujjwal Vivek — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 06:26:46 +0000

A long read ahead. My apologies.

A little bit of the Backstory

Had the skills. Had the ideas. Didn't have the version of me that could finish this.

After years of trying to ship for companies that claimed to love "innovation", but falters the moment you actually build focused or asked hard questions. Made meeself nauseous.

So, I built something FOR ME.
A handcrafted platform for the version of me that just wants to be seen and heard.

The website does not have a hefty tech stack attached to it but I tried to get out of my comfort zone and made something I'm really proud of.

Tech Stack

Simple old reactjs paired with markdown and that's it. No CSS frameworks. No analytics. No trackers. No SEO. Not even trying to steal a bite out of that cookie you're having.

But here's what I duct taped into this

-- Custom styled Markdown

-- Procedural Background Generation (currently CPU-bound. Exploring the possibility to hand the computing over to the GPU using webGPU, for a smoother web experience)

-- Theme aware (Getting the blur layer to work across all of WebKit was a PITA, contrast and readability took a hit. Would love to hear how to make the theme switcher more "aware")

-- pdf.js runs the PDF viewer on this site. (would love to know of any tips and tricks to update inbuilt classes styles in a more robust way that works across all platforms, the default viewer style just doesn't match the vibe)

-- A easter egg that's also a rabbit hole. (would love to know if you happen to come across it. Feedback or roasts, your call.)

-- Posts written as commits.(Probably might explore a possibility of a CMS)

-- Too much motion. No honestly. (Thinking of implementing a "low chaos" mode for folks who might get dizzy)

Showcase in Screenshots

Dark Mode

Light Mode

Choose your vibe and color with this handcrafted procedural generators

Custom styled Markdown

A place for my Unfinished thoughts and Devlogs. Don't mind the Markdown testing page :)

still very glitchy. still evolving. but its live and I couldn't be more proud. let me know if this made you feel anything. or don't.

Feel free to check more of the backstory of how this website came to life over at my blog.