Friends

Andy’s site is a thoughtful frontend engineer’s corner of the web, with a strong focus on accessibility, usability, performance, CSS, and building things well. I also like that it makes room for the rest of Andy, including miniature painting and the things he enjoys outside of writing code.

Asa has been one of those steady voices on the web for a long time: opinionated, thoughtful, and willing to say what he actually thinks. I like that his site still feels like a real personal blog, with strong opinions, web history, and the kind of posts that remind me why individual voices on the internet still matter.

Bex's site is a clear look at how she approaches ecommerce: connecting customer experience, experimentation, analytics, and strategy instead of treating them as separate problems. She has a practical way of turning a lot of moving pieces into a plan that a team can actually execute.

Brad’s site is pretty minimal, but that actually feels right for him. It points you toward the work instead of trying to turn itself into a product: software engineering, open source, and the projects he has contributed to over the years. I like that it is simply his little home on the web and doesn’t pretend it needs to be anything more.

Chris’s site is wonderfully hard to put into one category. He writes about programming and teaching, but also novels, writing, painting, wine, music, and whatever else has his attention, which is exactly what a personal website should be allowed to do.

Derek’s site is one of those places that reminds me how much a personal website can hold. He writes, builds things, keeps notes, shares his code, and runs NowNowNow, which is how I crossed paths with him. His work with CD Baby is part of why so many people know him, but what I like here is that his own site is still the center of what he makes.

Jeff’s site is exactly what I like about personal websites: part work, part history, and part whatever he happens to be thinking about. He has been building communities and things on the web for decades, and his site gives that history a place to live alongside whatever he is working on now.

Josh has been writing at Joshtronic for more than a decade, mostly about code, the web, things he is building, and whatever else has his attention. We crossed paths because of the Joshternet, which feels like an appropriately weird way for two Joshes on the independent web to meet.

Matthew’s site is his personal portfolio and reflects the unusual mix of development, design, illustration, and creative work he has done over the years. There has always been more than one kind of creative work going on with Matthew, and his corner of the web reflects that.

Miranda’s site has the same warmth and sense of humor she does. It’s playful, personal, and full of little details that make it feel like a real corner of the web, especially her travel log, which reads less like a polished itinerary and more like being let in on the funny, memorable parts of the trip. She’s also just genuinely one of the sweetest people I know.

Nick found my /now page through Derek Sivers’ index and emailed me out of the blue to suggest I make a /friends page. I thought that was cool enough that, well, here we are. His site is full of writing, experiments, travel notes, projects, and the kind of personal rabbit holes that make a personal site worth wandering through.