Overview
a-mamal.dev is the development and experimentation space for projects.
It is where I explore ideas, test approaches, document
technical decisions, and experiment with technologies and development
practices.
Unlike a-mamal.com, which serves primarily as my personal website and
portfolio, a-mamal.dev focuses more directly on the development process
behind the projects.
The site is intended to evolve alongside the projects it documents.
Its structure, content, and technical implementation may therefore
change as new ideas are explored and existing approaches are improved.
Content Architecture
a-mamal.dev separates its written content into two main areas:
Articles and Documentation. Although both contain written material,
they serve different purposes and are handled differently.
Articles
Articles are intended for publishable content that can stand on its own,
separate from the project's documentation. They are
written in Markdown and imported into the database, where their content
and metadata can be managed by the application.
Storing articles in the database provides structured information such
as titles, slugs, publication status, publication dates, timestamps,
and authors. It also provides a foundation for features such as
searching and filtering as the site develops.
The Markdown files remain the source used to seed the articles, while
the database provides the structure needed by the application to
manage and display them.
Documentation
Documentation is handled differently.
Project documentation is stored directly in the site's repository
and is written using Blade views and reusable partials
rather than being stored in the database.
Each project has its own documentation page,
while individual sections of that documentation are kept as partials.
This keeps the documentation close to the project itself
and makes it easy to add, remove, or rearrange sections as the project evolves.
Documentation may cover project structure, development setup,
deployment, technical decisions, and other information that is useful
when understanding or maintaining a project.
Technical decisions may be documented where useful, but the
documentation does not attempt to record the entire thought process
behind every decision. Its purpose is to provide useful context and
reference material rather than a complete development diary.
Why Keep Them Separate?
Articles and documentation can sometimes cover related subjects, but
they have different roles. Articles are published pieces of content,
while documentation is reference material tied to the projects
themselves.
Keeping them separate allows each to use the structure that best suits
its purpose without forcing the same content model onto both.
