As a software developer, I prefer lightweight stuff and avoid dependencies when possible. Over the years, I have been leaning more and more towards “frugality”. I used to be big fan of libraries like jQuery and FontAwesome, but now I rarely use them any more. I started to write vanilla JavaScript after I suddently discovered document.querySelector() one day (before that, I thought $() was the only way to select a node in the world).
Similarly, I stopped using special libraries such as FontAwesome for icons and symbols after I looked through the full list of HTML character entities. Yes, this list of symbols is much shorter than that in FontAwesome, but I often refrain from using fancy symbols, so this list is rich enough for me.
Most of the time, I only need a couple of symbols, so I really don’t want to import a full external JS/CSS library. For example, yesterday I wanted to add icons after those external links on the rmarkdown website, to indicate that they will be opened in new windows. Eventually I found and added the entity ⧉ (double boxes ⧉), which was a perfect symbol for my purpose.
Last year, when I was designing the hugo-xmag theme for Hugo, I also got an inspiration from the list of HTML entities: I realized I could easy turn a letter into a Blackletter, e.g., 𝔄 is 𝔄, and 𝔅 is 𝔅, etc. So the default site name is generated in Blackletter in the hugo-xmag theme. It looked cool to me, and didn’t need any third-party dependencies.
Certain HTML entities may not work in all web browsers, but I don’t really care. For my personal websites, I have no intention to support legacy browsers.
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As a freelancer (currently working as a contractor) and a dad of three kids, I truly appreciate your donation to support my writing and open-source software development! Your contribution helps me cope with financial uncertainty better, so I can spend more time on producing high-quality content and software. You can make a donation through methods below.
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Venmo:
@yihui_xie, or Zelle:xie@yihui.name -
Paypal
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If you have a Paypal account, you can follow the link https://paypal.me/YihuiXie or find me on Paypal via my email
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When sending money, please be sure to add a note “gift” or “donation” if possible, so it won’t be treated as my taxable income but a genuine gift. Needless to say, donation is completely voluntary and I appreciate any amount you can give.
Please feel free to email me if you prefer a different way to give. Thank you very much!
I’ll give back a significant portion of the donations to the open-source community and charities. For the record, I received about $30,000 in total (before tax) in 2024-25, and gave back about $15,000 (after tax).