A developer shares their experience rewriting a blog from Hugo to HTMX with Java Spring Boot backend. The post covers the HTMX mental model, challenges with navigation using hx-push-url vs hx-boost, integrating Alpine.js for mobile responsiveness, and backend optimizations including caching and Thymeleaf templating. Key learnings include understanding HTMX's HTML-first approach and combining it with complementary libraries for a complete web application.