6 ms·

Personally I work in tech all day, I want my blog to be as simple as possible and to focus just on my writing. Still using Jekyll.

by ferros 6y ago

nickjj 6y ago
I use Jekyll too. It just works and I'd happily use it on future projects. Even with ~300 posts and ~100 drafts it only takes 2 seconds to see auto-reloaded updates when I'm actively writing. That's within WSL 1 too (room for speed improvements are there with WSL 2). It also has nice plugins to process SCSS and bundle your CSS / JS, along with md5 tagging all static files for cache busting without having to use Webpack or do anything complicated. You just reference them using a specific plugin's template tag. But at the same time you can choose to use Webpack if you'd like. I'm not sure why the author mentioned Jekyll is too restrictive. You can write plugins to do some pretty custom things. Like, I wrote a few lines of Ruby to parse out time stamps from a list to make them clickable links so that I can jump to that position in a custom audio player, very similar to how clickable time stamps work on Youtube. You can pretty much do anything.
- dbergamin 6y ago
  Another Jekyll fan chiming in. It was a good sign for me that it's not super-actively maintained, yet still commands a strong following in an arena with fairly low switching costs. Out of the box, it has most things you want and very little that you don't. Principle 1 on the Jekyll philosophy is 'no magic', and that's why I love it. It tends to behave as expected, and what it provides is simple enough that I maintain a feeling of full control over the output. I've wrote some little bits of JS to add minor client-side enhancements, and the Jekyll plugin system is easy to dive into if you want to add some site-render features. Great tool. Kudos to the author for putting something up for discussion. Replace the word 'The' with 'My' in the title and it's a nice exploration of where React tooling for static sites is at. Keep publishing and sharing mate, you're good at telling a story and have more good content ahead of you.
  - colinmcd 6y ago
    I appreciate it! Too late to edit the title unfortunately (I posted this right before going to bed...bad move).
- colinmcd 6y ago
  You lost me at "plugins" I'm afraid. I looked into ways to mix in React + TypeScript into both Hugo and Jekyll and it just seemed like an uphill battle. Based on my criteria (which I'm realizing aren't very popular on HN!) the best approach is to build everything "React-first" with Markdown mixed in, instead of the other way around.
  - nickjj 6y ago
    > You lost me at "plugins" I'm afraid. Plugins are optional. If you used Webpack directly to manage your static files you could just tell Jekyll to load them from whatever directory Webpack outputs them to and then you can build your SPA to render blog posts however you see fit. If you're using React you would want to use a native Webpack config right? This way it works anywhere, and isn't tied into any specific static site generator.
NalNezumi 6y ago
I'm looking in to Jekyll as well, since it's what github recommend and I really can't be bothered with templates and re-learning all web stuff when all I need is to be able to write text and show pictures. Haven't really gotten started with it, but I wonder where the limitation of the tool will be felt? Do you need to know Ruby and the things around it too? I were thinking of also suggest it to my SO who have past experience in web design but no programming skill at all (I can at least set up her github account). My guess she would be more picky with how the page looks though.
- ferros 6y ago
  It’s much like Wordpress in the sense that you can get it up and running very quickly. The time cost is in how much you want to customise it. Once it’s set up it’s just markdown, no ruby required.
- pizza234 6y ago
  > but I wonder where the limitation of the tool will be felt I use it and I don't feel any limitation. One can always add Javascript (AFAIK) if they want new functionality. What bothers me is that adding new functionality should be attempted first in the idiomatic (for the platform) way, which in the Jekyll case, is the Liquid language. I personally don't like it, but it's not a big deal to add small features (e.g. tagging). Wordpress (AFAIK; I don't use it) has a large amount of plugins. If the intention is from the beginning to customize the blog functionality - as opposed to styling - probably Wordpress can be easier. But we're not talking anymore about a minimalistic design. > Do you need to know Ruby and the things around it too? Not at all! Just write in plain markdown with Front Matter.
  - NalNezumi 6y ago
    thanks for the feedback! If JS can be done (and from a quick look css html and basic stuff is there), I guess I can also recommend it to my SO :)
- saagarjha 6y ago
  If you're using GitHub Pages to automatically deploy the website for you, then you can't use plugins, which kind of sucks.
colinmcd 6y ago
One of my goals is to maintain that same authoring simplicity. All I need to do is create a new `.md` file in the right directory and a new blog post is created - just like you. I just don't want to fight an uphill battle every time I want to leave that lane.

Personally I work in tech all day, I want my blog to be as simple as possible and to focus just on my writing. Still using Jekyll.

by ferros 6y ago

Personally I work in tech all day, I want my blog to be as simple as possible and to focus just on my writing. Still using Jekyll.

nickjj 6y ago

I use Jekyll too. It just works and I'd happily use it on future projects. Even with ~300 posts and ~100 drafts it only takes 2 seconds to see auto-reloaded updates when I'm actively writing. That's within WSL 1 too (room for speed improvements are there with WSL 2). It also has nice plugins to process SCSS and bundle your CSS / JS, along with md5 tagging all static files for cache busting without having to use Webpack or do anything complicated. You just reference them using a specific plugin's template tag. But at the same time you can choose to use Webpack if you'd like. I'm not sure why the author mentioned Jekyll is too restrictive. You can write plugins to do some pretty custom things. Like, I wrote a few lines of Ruby to parse out time stamps from a list to make them clickable links so that I can jump to that position in a custom audio player, very similar to how clickable time stamps work on Youtube. You can pretty much do anything.

dbergamin 6y ago
Another Jekyll fan chiming in. It was a good sign for me that it's not super-actively maintained, yet still commands a strong following in an arena with fairly low switching costs. Out of the box, it has most things you want and very little that you don't. Principle 1 on the Jekyll philosophy is 'no magic', and that's why I love it. It tends to behave as expected, and what it provides is simple enough that I maintain a feeling of full control over the output. I've wrote some little bits of JS to add minor client-side enhancements, and the Jekyll plugin system is easy to dive into if you want to add some site-render features. Great tool. Kudos to the author for putting something up for discussion. Replace the word 'The' with 'My' in the title and it's a nice exploration of where React tooling for static sites is at. Keep publishing and sharing mate, you're good at telling a story and have more good content ahead of you.
- colinmcd 6y ago
  I appreciate it! Too late to edit the title unfortunately (I posted this right before going to bed...bad move).
colinmcd 6y ago
You lost me at "plugins" I'm afraid. I looked into ways to mix in React + TypeScript into both Hugo and Jekyll and it just seemed like an uphill battle. Based on my criteria (which I'm realizing aren't very popular on HN!) the best approach is to build everything "React-first" with Markdown mixed in, instead of the other way around.
- nickjj 6y ago
  > You lost me at "plugins" I'm afraid. Plugins are optional. If you used Webpack directly to manage your static files you could just tell Jekyll to load them from whatever directory Webpack outputs them to and then you can build your SPA to render blog posts however you see fit. If you're using React you would want to use a native Webpack config right? This way it works anywhere, and isn't tied into any specific static site generator.

NalNezumi 6y ago

I'm looking in to Jekyll as well, since it's what github recommend and I really can't be bothered with templates and re-learning all web stuff when all I need is to be able to write text and show pictures. Haven't really gotten started with it, but I wonder where the limitation of the tool will be felt? Do you need to know Ruby and the things around it too? I were thinking of also suggest it to my SO who have past experience in web design but no programming skill at all (I can at least set up her github account). My guess she would be more picky with how the page looks though.

ferros 6y ago
It’s much like Wordpress in the sense that you can get it up and running very quickly. The time cost is in how much you want to customise it. Once it’s set up it’s just markdown, no ruby required.
pizza234 6y ago
> but I wonder where the limitation of the tool will be felt I use it and I don't feel any limitation. One can always add Javascript (AFAIK) if they want new functionality. What bothers me is that adding new functionality should be attempted first in the idiomatic (for the platform) way, which in the Jekyll case, is the Liquid language. I personally don't like it, but it's not a big deal to add small features (e.g. tagging). Wordpress (AFAIK; I don't use it) has a large amount of plugins. If the intention is from the beginning to customize the blog functionality - as opposed to styling - probably Wordpress can be easier. But we're not talking anymore about a minimalistic design. > Do you need to know Ruby and the things around it too? Not at all! Just write in plain markdown with Front Matter.
- NalNezumi 6y ago
  thanks for the feedback! If JS can be done (and from a quick look css html and basic stuff is there), I guess I can also recommend it to my SO :)
saagarjha 6y ago
If you're using GitHub Pages to automatically deploy the website for you, then you can't use plugins, which kind of sucks.

colinmcd 6y ago

One of my goals is to maintain that same authoring simplicity. All I need to do is create a new `.md` file in the right directory and a new blog post is created - just like you. I just don't want to fight an uphill battle every time I want to leave that lane.