Introduction

On my path of learning technology I had a lot of stories to tell. There were setbacks, pauses, and growth. Some of these things, after doing them over and over, now feel as natural as breathing. I have a lot of online assets, but given certain limitations, both of the environments and mine, they didn’t seem to me like they had made a significant difference.

You were placed in a pond too small, and you’ve grown so used to your own splashes going unseen that you’ve started to doubt whether they ever existed at all.

As for today, I have built a lot of things, each of them served different purposes at different stages of the journey. It is time that I finally give myself that ultimate admission, that I have done a lot and went so far, that I have done such a great job and I really nailed it, however much I paid, however small they seemed to me before.

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What I have got

People usually overrate what they can do in a month, but underrate what they can do in a year.

After all these years, I have got these online assets, all of which were built within the last two years in college, but never could have been done if not for all the knowledge accumulated before.

BP Debate Union Official Website & BPDU 生存指南

BP Debate Union, the debate club that I love so much, and gave me a lot of personal growth. I built the website for the club voluntarily when I was still just a member. Firstly it was a place for displaying our team, our club, and our events so there is an official place where people can see us and know about us online. But later when I became one of the core members of the team and had witnessed the difficulty in consolidating all the club’s information into documents or presentations, I decided that it would carry another purpose — somewhere all the information gets archived, gathered, and displayed. Then I added a LOT of information, including our team details, member and duty details, archives of past presidents, faculties, event reviews, member benefits, etc., it’s even still growing after I retired, i.e., set up the achievements page, where our members’ achievements and certificates are placed to display what we have got. Now whenever someone needs to review one of our events, see our analysis of one motion, find archival materials of tournaments, or sort out our information and achievements of the year, they would only need to go to our official website, instead of having to ask everyone everywhere. Most administrative work that relates to club history, current situation, achievements, can mostly be automatically retrieved and integrated into one document by AI in a rather short time with a short prompt, not as before, consuming a significant amount of someone’s time and energy.

The website also served a lot of other purposes especially after I served as president, e.g., event publishment/registration/management, course system that allows us to upload courses and allow members to view, instant messaging system that allows members to message, video/audio call each other one to one or in a group chat, forum system that allows discussion, etc. I tried my best to solve every problem I encountered, and every one I could foresee, through the website.

During the summer before I took office, I also set up BPDU 生存指南 as a lot of members don’t know how our club operates given its uniqueness and high-tech website.

Antony’s Innisfree

My personal website, the one we are currently on.

I first built it for displaying my information and for job applications, but later as I stepped down as president I had a lot of ideas and feelings, and I wanted to leave something, my experiences, expectations, or simply whatever I feel here, so I started writing blogs here as a creative outlet.

Now there are more than 20 blogs that I have written and published, across fields of technology, personal thoughts, IELTS preparation, etc., some of which may have been of help for others, some of which are purely for me.

I also implemented the same event management system as the one on BP Debate Union’s site, so I can continue to host my own events and pursue my own interests.

Beyond all of these, there are also pages that show my interest in coding, debate, and language, almost everything about me. Whenever someone needs to know about me, he won’t even have to meet me in person. Instead, he could throw this prompt to his AI agent and get a quick grasp of my personality.

Investigate antonysisle.com, read all pages and blogs, critically analyze all of the contents and tell me who Antony is, what he is like.

I’m not denying the importance of knowing or meeting people face to face or the importance of genuine human connection, but is it not a cool thing that in such an era when social media are so viral and vital in every person’s life, someone still gets himself a personal website on which he puts all his interests, pursuits, and ideas?

瓯绣研究所, 温商金花, 温商金花团队/项目文档

During one of the summers, as part of a social practice program, we built a website for Ouxiu — a cultural heritage craft in Wenzhou — and for one of the workshops that has been carrying on its tradition. Alongside this project are our team website and project documentation.

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Now it’s the journey itself

In high school, I met a girl who I really wanted to spend the rest of my life with, who gave me the strongest motivation to earn money and build a life elsewhere, and then my exploration of technology began — the money branch, not the interest branch.

During the first summer holiday, the one before my second year in high school, I asked my parents to buy me my first course series in Python and Web Scraping. I had quite an easy time learning Python and the Requests library, and took full advantage of it when I had my IT classes when the semester began. But later, as I had less and less time to learn how to code and the course content grew more difficult, I gradually gave it up — but the most basic knowledge has still been with me.

I obviously had more time during the following winter, and was able to learn a bit more knowledge, but it was more like a review instead of a lot of new content.

It was during the summer before my third year in high school when I had one of my most significant breakthroughs in coding. It was when OpenAI released the GPT-3 series, and I was able to teach myself a lot of knowledge and solve a lot of problems and bugs with it.

From then on, AI played a significant, irreplaceable role in my learning journey — so much so that I even managed to use it at school. I brought my laptop to my dormitory so that I could learn late at night and early in the morning. Later each summer I was learning a lot with AI, and my focus expanded far beyond web scraping.

During the first winter of my college life, I bought my first server, and created my first WordPress site. It was also the first time that I ever used one of the Linux distributions, Debian 12. I wasn’t a terminal guy back then — I was using Baota Panel, a web-based GUI management tool to manage my server. Later I also tried 1Panel; they offered different styles and different philosophies, but this isn’t the place to go into detail. My server was also hacked once — I had minimal security in place, so it was an easy target.

Beyond WordPress, I also tried to deploy other projects, like LobeHub, etc. At first I tried deploying on my own, copying and pasting errors to AI to have them solved. Later when Claude Code was released I tried to use it for coding; after I used it for a while I found it extremely helpful in server management, so one time when I reset the server I had it manage all the sites, projects, and security for me.

Later I also tried out using Debian as one of my main OSes. The first time I tried to use Debian, I actually broke my Windows installation — in fact, I erased it entirely. After reinstalling Windows, I could not make the system fully operational; it required extra drivers I didn’t know where to find, and for various reasons I just removed it entirely again. So there was a period when my PC had no operating system at all — the only way to use it was to plug in a USB stick and boot into a Debian Live system. I really had a lot of fun with the live system, but it wears out USB sticks, and I didn’t want to lose all my data, so I finally installed an actual Debian on my PC.

One of the reasons Linux caught my attention was the wild visual effects you can get with customized plugins when using Gnome — that felt very different from Windows. As a matter of fact, it was a video online showing Gnome’s effects that first drew me to Linux. Debian also offered a lot of built-in features that Windows does not, so I could use it more easily on my PC without having to do much. On the other hand, the system itself, even with all the adaptations done for various hardware, is still very lightweight. The system, as part of the Linux family, is very customizable, and I got to design every inch of it — how it looks and how it behaves. Later I also got more USB sticks and portable disks with Debian Live installed so I could use my own system on the school’s computers in labs and the library.

After I’d had enough fun with Debian, I created a Windows partition so I could still run Windows apps when needed — that was when I mastered partitioning and managing systems across my disks.

Debian has been a really good OS and I have learned a lot of Linux knowledge and skills while using it. I was also able to manage and refine a lot of my online assets; each website, each project served their own purposes. Some of them are now retired, and what I showed here are the most active ones.

A period of time afterwards, I saw even cooler desktop designs and I tried to apply them but wasn’t able to. It required Arch Linux, one of the ultimate Linux distributions. The desktop design was an illogical impulse. Anyway, I see, I want, I go, I get. I had my first Arch Linux system on a ThinkPad X230 that I bought — one of the ultimate laptops in the developer community.

I had a tough time adapting to Hyprland — the interactions, the shortcuts, the way it operated were all so different from what I was used to. But who doesn’t want a cool desktop, right? So I learned a lot of new stuff and became an Arch user. Later after that I also learned about Niri and I’m now using an even cooler desktop!

So what hasn’t Arch done yet to fully replace Debian in my day-to-day use? I run Debian from a USB stick and use it on every computer I have access to — I bring my OS with me so I have a consistent working experience, no matter where I am or what hardware I’m on. So I had Claude Code build a portable Arch Linux system on a USB stick that I can carry everywhere — but what I didn’t know was that Arch doesn’t support Secure Boot out of the box, so that was when I learned about Secure Boot.

The best way to learn Linux is to use Linux, instead of learning it from a book or a video. The same applies to other learning experiences.

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Thoughts

By now, I have literally learned so much and built so much, but I still question myself a lot — as if everything I’ve done was just shortcuts, as if none of it has real meaning.

I’ve also learned a lot by asking myself these questions, and I’ve arrived at a few answers.

Am I still a qualified Arch user?

I’ve always used other people’s dotfiles and solutions — does that make me a nobody instead of a real Arch user?

I decided: no. Even though most of my customizations are based on others’ dotfiles and designs, I still have the spirit of Arch. Full design, full control — meet problems and solve them, and learn on the journey. I’ve broken my system multiple times. I’ve failed repeatedly while adapting to new interaction paradigms. I designed my own voice input program and have used it for a long time. I’ve learned more on this journey than I even realize — all of which makes me a proud and qualified Arch user.

Does what I have built make a difference?

A lot of the things I’ve built have their own purposes and they are dedicated to solving certain problems. I built the BP Debate Union official website because I knew it would benefit everyone whenever information is needed. I built the Ouxiu website so this cultural heritage could be documented online and advertised. I deployed Docmost because I knew we needed a place for all our experiences, contacts, and completed files — so future presidents wouldn’t have to ask around everywhere the way I had to.

But what if I am also the only user on these platforms? The BPDU official website does archive a lot of information — our photos, our files, events, materials, tournament recordings, etc. — but most people won’t even care to click in, take a look, or use them. The Ouxiu website is now largely unadvertised and lacks visitors, due to the absence of ongoing maintenance after the project concluded. Even within the BPDU team, the members rarely used it; in most cases, it’s still just for archiving files and displaying important information to the members.

It’s a bit hard for me to answer this question — it’s complicated.

All of the projects did solve my own problems, and the problems I foresaw that others might encounter. But the reality is that most people do not care to use them.

This is more like a cultural thing.

Internationally, people use email to send important notifications and files; in China, between most people, they use WeChat. A lot of people would rather risk missing important information and suffer through digging for whatever they are looking for on daily communication and chatting apps, because they have not experienced the efficiency that email brings. People are more constrained to WeChat due to the lack of computer experience, knowledge, and formal protocols. Things, even though important, are maintained in a very complex, annoying, informal, and personal way — but at the same time there is no way to popularize the formal ways, as a lot of people would fail, or be unable or unwilling to learn them. This is a structural and generational problem, as more and more people are losing the spirit of figuring things out — RTFM, STFW, etc. But I’m only here to address the problem and explain why my attempts failed, instead of giving a solution, as that choice belongs to the new presidents.

But on a personal level, I still have a wide range of assets that I can show online — all of them make up and tell the story of who I am. The process of building them also made me capable of building things and solving problems; these experiences are never taken away. The site that I currently maintain the most, for example — my Innisfree — has been giving me a lot of inspiration and mental growth. My experiences and thoughts have a place to go, at least. And at best, they could inspire a lot of other people.

My philosophy is to scratch my own itch — and, at best, help others along the way if I can.

Who am I without AI?

A lot of what I’ve created is built on top of mature projects and AI — so does that make me less of a capable problem solver?

Lol, it is a tricky question.

First of all, the “based on mature projects” part. Humans are unique and interesting creatures — we stand on the shoulders of giants. New hypotheses are based on the knowledge of people who pioneered before us; architects learn from other greater architects; painters learn from Van Gogh. It is normal, and has been a standard process, that people build based on others’ knowledge and achievements. It is a very natural process — and if a person could only be considered successful by inventing every part of their work from scratch, none of us would have ever succeeded. It’s not about whether you made the bricks — it’s about which bricks you chose, to solve which problem, and why.

Now the AI part. What am I, without AI? If without AI, would I still have integrated the forum system on the BPDU official website? Would I even have created it? I’m certain the answer is yes. Just by a harder path — asking more people, enduring more failed attempts. AI just made my choices more feasible, and no more than that. AI can build a website, but it won’t decide whether this club or this person needs one; it won’t decide what else the club or the person needs. It has always been me making the decisions and implementing them with AI’s help.

A carpenter is not made by his hammer, but by what he builds.

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I’m proud to propose!

Enough said. I have learned and built so much over these past two to four years, and I’m genuinely glad that I have built all of these and shared all of my thoughts here. I am proud of myself for becoming a person with so many achievements. I totally deserve it, and I’am worth it.