4 ms·

Recently I have been thinking about moving my personal blog from Wordpress to a static site generator, because I don't allow comments or use Wordpress plugins.

Recently I have been thinking about moving my personal blog from Wordpress to a static site generator, because I don't allow comments or use Wordpress plugins. (Those who want comments can still use a combination of a static site generator and Disqus.) It occurred to me that once I did that, I could completely disable PHP on my Apache installation. It made me wonder how much usage of PHP out there is essentially a historical accident, and that if modern static site generators had taken off before Movable Type, the language might have been much less widely adopted.

innocenat 6y ago
Depend on how you count what is static site generator. Dreamweaver has a template system you can use to generate pages. It could probably be considered a WYSIWYG static site generator. I have never used FrontPage, but I would imagine similar system also exists. There are also a lot of other WYSIWYG website editors out there during late 1990s and early 2000's. Despite that, CMS system thrives.
- slantyyz 6y ago
  On the "easier to use" front, there was also iWeb and apps like RapidWeaver.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
robjan 6y ago
Static site generators are a niche market, whereas blogging is a mass market. The vast majority of WordPress users probably wouldn't know / care about static sites. WordPress is still significantly more convenient and user friendly for your average user
- slantyyz 6y ago
  Does anything like Blogger still exist? Blogger was really easy to use back in the day, and even today, I'd choose it over Wordpress. edit: Context: I used Blogger to publish to a paid hosting service via ftp
dpcx 6y ago
But Movable Type was written (mostly) in Perl... I'm not sure I see how Movable Type affects PHP all that much, but maybe I'm missing something.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  Movable Type was popular, but a change in its licensing terms led to people leaving it in droves for Wordpress which had a similar interface and approach. Fast forward to 2020, and Wordpress installations reportedly make up the majority of PHP use in the world.
  - dpcx 6y ago
    If I'm reading that correctly, the license change happened in 2013... Well after Wordpress was already highly established as the dominant player.
    - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
      No, the Movable Type license change that drove massive migration to Wordpress happened in 2004.

innocenat 6y ago

Depend on how you count what is static site generator. Dreamweaver has a template system you can use to generate pages. It could probably be considered a WYSIWYG static site generator. I have never used FrontPage, but I would imagine similar system also exists. There are also a lot of other WYSIWYG website editors out there during late 1990s and early 2000's. Despite that, CMS system thrives.

slantyyz 6y ago
On the "easier to use" front, there was also iWeb and apps like RapidWeaver.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

robjan 6y ago

Static site generators are a niche market, whereas blogging is a mass market. The vast majority of WordPress users probably wouldn't know / care about static sites. WordPress is still significantly more convenient and user friendly for your average user

slantyyz 6y ago
Does anything like Blogger still exist? Blogger was really easy to use back in the day, and even today, I'd choose it over Wordpress. edit: Context: I used Blogger to publish to a paid hosting service via ftp

dpcx 6y ago

But Movable Type was written (mostly) in Perl... I'm not sure I see how Movable Type affects PHP all that much, but maybe I'm missing something.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago
Movable Type was popular, but a change in its licensing terms led to people leaving it in droves for Wordpress which had a similar interface and approach. Fast forward to 2020, and Wordpress installations reportedly make up the majority of PHP use in the world.
- dpcx 6y ago
  If I'm reading that correctly, the license change happened in 2013... Well after Wordpress was already highly established as the dominant player.
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    No, the Movable Type license change that drove massive migration to Wordpress happened in 2004.