I wanted to set up a blog as a record of my time at Recurse Center. There's two main reasons I wanted to do this.

First, I want to commit to reflecting on my progress on Sunday each week. What I worked on, what I learned, what I found interesting, how it felt. I think setting up a blog will help me stay consistent. If I have the idea that even a few people might be reading what I write, then I have incentive to stay consistent.

Second, I can use the blog as an artifact. One that I can both reflect on and share. Having a single reference point that documents my progress over time is nice because I can then share my experience with anyone who might be interested. This could be a potential employer, someone else considering RC, or just a curious family member.

Given this desire to blog, I needed a platform to do so. I considered a few options. These included: just adding markdown files to my personal site, building and deploying my own blog in Django (which has the benefit of built in admin), mirror.xyz (because of my interest in Web3), and Bear. I came across Bear though a Hacker News search.

Ultimately, I chose Bear for a few reasons. First, it's extremely minimal. Second, I don't have to host anything myself. Third, and what swayed me the most, it's written in Django, open source, and contributions are encouraged. One of my goals for RC is to contribute to an open source project. I like Django and have built a blog in it before. So Bear's source code is easy for me to understand. By using the platform myself, I'll notice areas for potential improvement. If I'm looking to make my first open source contribution, what could be a better place to start?