Until recently, I had the impression that using templates to build a website might be "cheating" or "not real developer work", that a true developer would build every site from scratch.
Then, #100Devs Instructor Leon Noel insisted that if a Developer is also a Designer, then yes, build a portfolio site from scratch, otherwise, definitely use a template. So I extended this to my sister's portfolio site and gave myself permission to use this free template from Matthew Casseres.
What jumped out at me is the difference in learning taking place by working with an already built app. It felt more like I was collaborating with someone else, getting a peek into Matthew's code style, which helped me think about my own, and by leaving credit at the bottom, I'm hopefully giving him more traffic. Win-win-win.
From his template, I built my sister a new website to feature her quilting business, The Joy Of Quilting Art.
Thank you Leon for inspiring me to try it out, and thank you Matthew and other folx who put templates out there for free, for sharing your work with me and others!
Also, thank you to another dev.to user, Davide Pacilio, for sharing a great list of free React templates that I have bookmarked and will definitely return to!
What are your thoughts on using templates? If you use them, where do you find yours?
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