Blog Post 4: the hyperfixation is kicking in °❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:・ Hello hello! Today's been a big day for me, and particulatly for my Github account! If you've read my previous blog posts, it'll be pretty clear that I've been really figuring out Github recently. Not to its full extent, and I don't dare touch the terminal, but I've been getting a better grasp on it than I had before. I've been using it a lot, and really familiarizing myself with how it works - to put things into perspective, this blog post is my 101st commit of the month. It's only the 3rd. Yeah. Anyways, in the process of learning how Github works, I came to the pretty sudden realization that it does exactly what I've been using Google Drive for. For about a year and a half now, I've kept all the files for my websites and projects in my Google Drive. The reason I did this was primarily because I wanted to save them in case anything happened to my computer, but I'd be lying if I said I loved that method for the convenience of it. With Google Drive installed on my computer, I could access the files as if they were on my desktop, which I'd regularly back things up to. Additionally, that made it so I had a much easier time editing things when I was stuck at school with nothing but my chromebook. Since Google Drive was pretty much the main storage on said chromebook, all I had to do was log into my personal account, and then I could use notepad to edit any files I wanted! It was convenient and served multiple purposes. However. As previously mentioned, I've been exploring Github a lot, and really getting used to it. Through it, I realized that it does everything I was using Google Drive for, but it does it in an easier and more intuitive way. When that realization hit, I immediately started moving things - I made several new repositories, just moving the code from my Google Drive to Github. What's even cooler is, I've been using Netlify to host my small project websites for a while now, using manual deploys (basically dragging and dropping the folder from my computer). However, since Netlify can connect to Github, I don't even have to do that! Just commit, and it automatically updates! I've said it before and I'll say it again, convenience makes things easier for me. It sounds like common sense, but truly, I struggle with doing a lot of things, even things that I like, so having a convenient option is really nice. In addition, it's motivating - having an "easy" way makes things more entertaining as well, since it feels more like a game. Particularly, a game where the controls are comfortable and intuitive, and the fun-factor hinges on your creativity. Because of that, I get a LOT more enjoyment out of playing around with my websites and their code now, because with the clones and connections, there's less concern about making sure I copied everything over to my desktop and uploaded everything to Netlify and things like that. It's like skipping steps to get the same result, which SOUNDS bad, but feels nice right about now, especially when my general trust in Google is very low. I spent a good while this evening just putting a handful of my projects into repositories, and it genuinely sparks joy to be able to see and access them on my Github profile. I'm still hoping to find other people with common interests and fun projects to be Github moots with, and I'm still very aware that that's not the point of the platform, but that makes me all the happier that I AM starting to get the point. I did my first pull request recently, and that went over smoothly, which is how I'm now in a webring! So many things are happening, and it makes me really happy. While I'm never quite sure how long an intense focus on an interest will last, these recent developments are making it clear to me that even if it's on the backburner, I'm always going to enjoy this sort of thing. On top of that, my way of being able to do it has become even more accessible to me, which means I'll still get to enjoy it on lower-energy days. I'm really excited about this, and I can't wait to see where things go from here. Thanks for reading! <3 - Bailey Lockheart (12/03/2024)