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I’m having trouble telling if this is satire, but I think it’s not. The arguments are fairly weak, notably: 1. Using a static site generator, you have to keep
by KMnO4 6y ago
I’m having trouble telling if this is satire, but I think it’s not.
The arguments are fairly weak, notably:
1. Using a static site generator, you have to keep track of the source code and the build (which the author suggests is more “source code”)
Nope. I could look at the dozen or so static sites sitting on my hard drive — I’ve kept none of the build directories. I simply git push the source and Netlify takes care of managing everything else.
2. > Let's say you want your site to have a specific directory structure, where pages are sorted under various categories. With Jekyll, this is practically impossible
Again, I don’t agree that this is even an issue, but there’s also nothing stopping you from using whatever directory structure you want. I don’t use Jekyll much, but that’s the thing about SSG: you can use the one that’s as simple or as complicated as you’d like!
You could even generate your site with a simple bash script:
for p in in/*.html; do cat common/header.html in/$p common/footer.html > out/$p; done
As you can see there’s very little stopping you from preserving whatever structure you want.
In fact, the author even suggests this! >If you find the previous step too much work, write a shell script that copies the directory and removes the old content for you.
Okay, so if you already have a script that copies content, you basically have a very bad manual SSG that doesn’t keep everything in sync.
I don’t really think any of this is easier than just spending the afternoon figuring out a basic SSG.
- mro_name 6y ago> and XYZ takes care of managing everything else. that's external dependencies. I guess that's a nogo for the author.
- xwolfi 6y agoYou spend the afternoon doing this, then a few more to make it "generic" then it's dozens of your successors swearing at you for doing something so complex to solve a problem so simple.
- vehemenz 6y agoI don't think it's satire. You're suggesting an SSG, Git, Netlify, and shell scripts. Is this really easier than HTML files on a server? I can do everything with HTML files, and if I need templating I can just use PHP.
- SketchySeaBeast 6y agoI mean, where are you keeping your backup files for if the server fails?
- tln 6y agoYes it is! Netlify is easier than HTML files on a server. Basically no effort to host a static site, even one that is generated. An SSG such as Jekyll, Hugo, Gridsome is potentially easier than HTML files because it uses abstractions to avoid repetitive, error prone HTML such as your lists of posts, previous next, sitemap, etc etc etc. And writing articles in Markdown is so much nicer than HTML. Git is easier than not using Git, whether or not you use an SSG. Shell scripts were offered as a poor mans SSG, so lets ignore them. SSG can be annoying when the templating sucks. I found Hugo annoying in this regard, Jekyll is fine, Gridsome is great, at least on par with PHP when you step outside the box. I think an SSG oriented framework is going to reduce how much templating/scripting you have to write massively. Hosting on your own server, setting up IPs, SSL, Nginx, some kind of deploy script (sftp or whatever) are not particularly hard but with Netlify it's all handled so easily. Theres no contest here
- skrebbel 6y agoNobody suggested hosting on your own server. There's 74824884 providers, free and paid, that let you drag and drop html files from the left to the right.
- vehemenz 6y agoWell, there is a contest because I'm not convinced. Your solution requires researching a bunch of SSGs, deploying and configuring them, and setting up a version control system (which you don't need for a low-stakes personal blog). My solution is a text file on a web server, using HTML (which I already know) instead of a pseudo-format with a gazillion implementations.