4 ms·

Maybe I'm just oldschool but I've never understood the point of these. What's wrong with varnish + [any dynamic platform]?

by meritt 10y ago

newscracker 10y ago
Assuming the learning curve to use a static site generator is addressed, I would say simplicity and stability are key points the the users of these appreciate. For example, even though I'm technically savvy, I struggle with Wordpress (wordpress.com) and its unintuitive UI. Almost every other (major?) release changes the locations of items and starts having some new-age UI vs. classic UI differences. I'm guessing that many other dynamic platforms are also bloated a lot when one looks at the features that most people use. Of course, there are dynamic platforms like Ghost [1] that have made it simpler, but Wordpress is still very common (so are other heavy platforms like Drupal and Joomla). For those who do use these, my best guesses on the benefits are, in no particular order: 1. The speed of transmitting and rendering the pages. 2. Flexibility to host the site anywhere where there's just a web server, even a low powered, low resource one (no need to look for mod_php or for a host that allows running rails or anything else). 3. Simplicity of having all content stored as plain text in files. There's no database to fiddle with or administer. 4. Flexibility to easily create their own templates (probably using a favorite templating engine). 5. Better and simpler control over security since the web server and the underlying OS are the main concerns (without adding several more layers on the server - this may be an oversimplification, but there are fewer things to worry about in general). 6. Better stability (fewer moving parts). 7. Version control of content, if one uses git or something similar. [1]: https://ghost.org/ https://ghost.org/
guitarbill 10y ago
cheaper, less maintenance. dynamic platform still needs more setup than static site generator + cheap, html only hosting (e.g. github pages). besides, mis-configuring a static site generator has way less security implications.

Maybe I'm just oldschool but I've never understood the point of these. What's wrong with varnish + [any dynamic platform]?

by meritt 10y ago

Maybe I'm just oldschool but I've never understood the point of these. What's wrong with varnish + [any dynamic platform]?

newscracker 10y ago

Assuming the learning curve to use a static site generator is addressed, I would say simplicity and stability are key points the the users of these appreciate. For example, even though I'm technically savvy, I struggle with Wordpress (wordpress.com) and its unintuitive UI. Almost every other (major?) release changes the locations of items and starts having some new-age UI vs. classic UI differences. I'm guessing that many other dynamic platforms are also bloated a lot when one looks at the features that most people use. Of course, there are dynamic platforms like Ghost [1] that have made it simpler, but Wordpress is still very common (so are other heavy platforms like Drupal and Joomla). For those who do use these, my best guesses on the benefits are, in no particular order: 1. The speed of transmitting and rendering the pages. 2. Flexibility to host the site anywhere where there's just a web server, even a low powered, low resource one (no need to look for mod_php or for a host that allows running rails or anything else). 3. Simplicity of having all content stored as plain text in files. There's no database to fiddle with or administer. 4. Flexibility to easily create their own templates (probably using a favorite templating engine). 5. Better and simpler control over security since the web server and the underlying OS are the main concerns (without adding several more layers on the server - this may be an oversimplification, but there are fewer things to worry about in general). 6. Better stability (fewer moving parts). 7. Version control of content, if one uses git or something similar. [1]: https://ghost.org/ https://ghost.org/

guitarbill 10y ago

cheaper, less maintenance. dynamic platform still needs more setup than static site generator + cheap, html only hosting (e.g. github pages). besides, mis-configuring a static site generator has way less security implications.