Hello Docusaurus - Building My Personal Blog

Hello world! 👋

Welcome to my personal blog. I'm Guangze Yang, a Control Systems researcher at Ibaraki University, and I'm excited to share my journey of building this blog using Docusaurus.

Why I Chose Docusaurus

As someone who works primarily in control systems and automation, I spend a lot of time writing technical documentation and research papers. When I decided to start a personal blog, I wanted something that would feel natural for someone with my background - clean, organized, and developer-friendly.

After exploring various options like WordPress and Jekyll, I landed on Docusaurus for several compelling reasons:

📝 Documentation-First Approach

Having spent countless hours writing technical documentation, I appreciate Docusaurus's philosophy of treating documentation as a first-class citizen. The seamless integration between docs and blog posts feels natural for someone who thinks in terms of structured information.

⚛️ React-Based Flexibility

As someone who enjoys tinkering with web technologies, the React foundation gives me the flexibility to customize components when needed, while still providing sensible defaults out of the box.

🚀 GitHub Pages Integration

The straightforward deployment to GitHub Pages was a huge selling point. With GitHub Actions, I can write in Markdown, push to my repository, and have the site automatically deployed - perfect for my workflow.

Setting Up the Blog

The setup process was surprisingly smooth, though I did encounter a few gotchas that are worth sharing:

Initial Configuration

The most critical part was getting the docusaurus.config.js right, especially for GitHub Pages deployment:

const config = {
  title: 'Youkoutaku',
  tagline: 'Endure hardship without bitterness, remember your roots even in success.',
  url: 'https://youkoutaku.github.io',
  baseUrl: '/', // This was crucial!
  organizationName: 'youkoutaku',
  projectName: 'docusaurus-youkoutaku',
  // ... rest of config
};

Pro tip: Make sure your baseUrl is set to '/' for user GitHub Pages (username.github.io), not the repository name!

Multilingual Support

Since I work in an international environment and want to share content in multiple languages, I configured support for English, Chinese, and Japanese:

i18n: {
  defaultLocale: 'en',
  locales: ['en', 'zh-Hans', 'ja'],
},

While English will be my primary language for blogging, having the infrastructure in place for future multilingual content feels like a smart decision.

What I Plan to Share

This blog will be a mix of technical insights and personal reflections:

🤖 Control Systems & Automation

• Research insights from my work at Ibaraki University
• Practical applications of control theory
• Industry trends in automation and robotics

💻 Software Development

• Tools and techniques I discover in my research
• Open-source projects I'm working on
• Web development experiments (like this blog!)

📚 Learning & Growth

• Academic journey and research experiences
• Cultural observations from my time in Japan
• Language learning adventures

🔧 Technical Tutorials

• Step-by-step guides for tools I find useful
• Documentation best practices
• Development workflow optimizations

The Road Ahead

Building this blog has reminded me why I love working with well-designed tools. Docusaurus strikes the perfect balance between simplicity and power - I can focus on writing while having the flexibility to customize when needed.

I'm particularly excited about:

• Integrating with my research workflow: Using this platform to share research insights and methodologies
• Building a knowledge base: Creating comprehensive documentation for projects I work on
• Connecting with the community: Engaging with other researchers and developers who share similar interests

A Personal Note

The tagline of this blog - "Endure hardship without bitterness, remember your roots even in success" - reflects a philosophy that has guided me through my academic and professional journey. I hope this blog can be a place where I not only share technical knowledge but also reflect on the human side of research and development.

Whether you're here for the technical content, the personal insights, or you just stumbled upon this blog by accident, I'm glad you're here. Feel free to reach out through any of the channels listed on this site - I'd love to connect!

What's Next?

In my next few posts, I plan to dive deeper into:

1. Setting up the complete GitHub Actions workflow for automated deployment
2. Customizing Docusaurus themes and components
3. My current research project in adaptive control systems
4. Tools and techniques for effective technical writing

Stay tuned, and thank you for joining me on this journey!

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This blog is built with Docusaurus and deployed on GitHub Pages. You can find the source code here.