About!
I am Paulo Gomes, born in 1976, Portuguese 🇵🇹 and currently living in the lovely city of Ghent, Belgium 🇧🇪, and proudly working at The Reference (EPAM Group) as Solutions Architect.
Info
Web enthusiast since the early internet days, graduated in Computers and Management in 2002, after that I worked in many places and companies, as freelancer, instructor, teacher, software engineer, system tester, system integrator, system administrator, developer and web architect. Check my work experience or full professional details in my linkedin page.
Not young but not old, modern but not an hipster. I am who I am!
I believe in balance and enjoying a bit of everything:
Traveling whenever I can, as there's nothing like getting to know new places and cultures.
Music: check out my alternative picks on Apple Music Station
Cinema: I love good films, mostly from directors like Hitchcock, David Lynch, Francis Ford Copolla, Kubrick, Sergio Leone, Tarantino, Clint Eastwood, Tim Burton, Wes Anderson, Sofia Copolla, Woody Allen, David Cronenberg, Coen brothers, Hayao Miyazaki.
TV Series: I'm particularly into Nordic drama and old, obscure sci-fi.
Sports: I used to play table tennis 🏓 when I was younger and now enjoy watching tennis 🎾, F1 🏎️, rugby 🏉, and snooker 🎱.
I love food, especially Italian and Japanese, and naturally Portuguese cuisines. Living in Belgium, I enjoy fries 🍟 (yes, Belgium Fries), chocolate 🍫, waffles — the Liege ones 🧇 ) and I also enjoy cooking. I'm not a chef, but I can do a decent seafood risotto and a tiramisu for dessert, or if you fancy something more decadent and high-calorie a classic Francesinha from Oporto.
Naturally, I'm a tech enthusiast. I was an early adopter of Linux (started with Slackware 96) but shifted to macOS in 2006 (during the very early Hackintosh days 🏴☠️ ), you can see the hardware and software I use.
My Skills
My Tech Stack
For a long time, I've been an enthusiast of approaches that reduce the need for maintenance, high server costs, and too much implementation effort.
Keep it simple and take what's available for free.
Of course, that depends on the project, and I'm not obstinate to try to prove something, but anyway, every time I can, I choose:
CMS
Contentful for both small and large websites
I keep also an eye on other options like Strapi, Payload and Webiny
I used and contributed in the past to Cockpit CMS, it's still a valid option for self-hosting.
Commerce
Hosting
Web Libraries and Frameworks
Databases
CSS Frameworks
Component Libraries
Form solutions
JSON Forms, JSON Schema based approach for creating forms
Web3Forms, free and easy to use, no database, submissions are sent directly to email
Any SaaS online form builder that allows post submission events like typeform or paperform.
Naturally, that can (and will) change with time. Technology is just a tool, and my focus is on people, not tools. What I mean is, I don't place excessive importance on Tech A being better than Tech B; the world is already too polarised for that sh*t.
What runs this website
I started building websites in the late '90s using pure HTML. Over time, I adapted to new technologies, so I transitioned from pure HTML/CSS to Drupal in 2008, a period during which I was quite enthusiastic about Drupal. However, around 2016, I got tired of doing security patches and module updates, and I wasn't particularly fond of the way things were progressing since version 8. Seeking a faster and more secure alternative, I turned to Hugo, a small static generator built in Go. This choice allowed me to maintain my website effortlessly until the end of 2023, during which I performed zero maintenance. But again, time to change, I eventually found some free time for a rebranding and a change in the architecture.
What I'm using
After previous experiences working with Contentful and Next, I made the decision to create my own starter - NETCS. This website is built upon the starter with only a few minor changes. The primary technologies employed include:
Contentful CMS - using the basic and free tier, it's more than enough for my needs and has everything I need
Next.js 14 - For me right now it's the most advanced react based web framework and keeps improving
Tailwind CSS - There are two kinds of frontend developers: those who love Tailwind and those who hate it. I, however, am neither a frontend developer, nor do I fall into either camp. I simply appreciate that it works well and provides a layer of abstraction for CSS on aspects I prefer not to dig into.
DaisyUI - A component library for Tailwind, provides simple components and theming out of the box.