Built for Exactly One

A month ago, this website moved to a custom engine that I built myself, one I call Jot. Why did I create it? Because I got tired of almost. Almost the right editor. Almost the right publishing flow. Almost the right feature set.

Each option did something I liked. None did everything that I wanted.

So I built exactly what I want and nothing more. The biggest difference from everything I have built before? No customisations. For my whole life, I have been building stuff that I want others to benefit from. So, I allow customising every feature I add. And only add those that can be customised.

Not Jot. This one is personal. Extremely personal.

The source isn’t public either. What’s the point of making code public any more? With LLMs, anyone can write code. And everyone is. Coding is no longer a skill reserved for developers. It is commoditised.

Design? That is the differentiator. The feature set I want in my software defines what I build. My passion for code has been replaced by my passion for designing, implementing, and launching just what I want. To get every minute detail right. Just the way I like it. The way I want it to behave. Nothing more. Nothing less.

That passion now keeps me maintaining an endless list of features that I nibble on slowly but add to aggressively. The more I use the software, the longer the list becomes. This list is not a wishlist for someone else to fulfil when they deem it important. Instead, it is a backlog of items that I can work on.

Because this comes from a passion for getting the features right for me, I decide how I want them implemented, too. My only criterion? Do it differently and learn along the way. Take decisions, the ones that are deliberate and the ones that are just stubborn.

Ruby, but not on rails? Sure. Passkeys? Sure. Backed by DB? Why not? Zero JavaScript frameworks? Of course. Kudos and Comments? Done. Notes as a first citizen? Absolutely.

But isn’t maintaining software more work? Shouldn’t I be more interested in writing words than code? What does owning this plumbing give me that the convenience of letting someone else own the troubles takes away?

Peace of mind. Because everything I need is there. Nothing that isn’t. And what’s missing today, I can add. Because I can.

When I asked an LLM to review what I built and give me its reading, here’s what it came back with.

Jot is an opinionated rejection of the modern blog stack. Every decision optimises for “one person writing and publishing” at the cost of everything else.

Well, that is what I aimed to build. Software for one person. Me.