Re: Static Site Generator

Posted by Gillian Densmore on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Static-Site-Generator-tp7586757p7586774.html

YES, Well good ol'fation HTML with CSS has worked since the lasted from 70s to present.

With Linx.

I haven't a clue if it's a over complicated thing or just right tool for the job thing, it might be a little of both.

Sufficed to say they they're strength is making a a few pages with a template. The challenge the ones i know of run into is folder management. Updating them is sometimes a slight issue, 

Ever mis place a file?, or lots of them?

 Suffice to say say that's something that Wordpress tries to avoid by encouraging you to upload your stuff, make a draft, a copy, then update but it's all a matter of taste ^_^

On Tue, Oct 13, 2015 at 9:52 AM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

On Tue, Oct 13, 2015 at 9:31 AM, Gillian Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

Is generator the right word?

​Yes. It's called that because you do an initial setup which establishes the basic layout of the site. Then when you add content, Markdown files generally, ​you run a CLI tool that generates your basic HTML/CSS/Javascript site.

It is only "static" in that there is no code on the server that is run, no databases, php, etc. Just plain HTML/CSS/Javascript. This makes them *very* fast, but more important, simple enough that you use the tools you used as a developer: node, javascript, canvas/webgl, and so on.

There are no mysteries. You know what is happening, and how. All the "dynanics" is done off-line and the user of the site suffers no silly delays caused by php/sql/etc. And they can be far more dynamic than you'd think. Comments are possible. AJAX allows "dynamic" access to content. But still no more than an HTTP server needed.

And you can run it anywhere: Dropbox, Amazon S3, GitHub Pages and many more that simply provide HTTP access to your data.

I like the cultural aspect as well: when things get too complicated, they implode under their own weight. I believe this is happening with websites & CMSs. Folks are sick of the complexity of WordPress and they realize that they really don't need 80% of their far-too-many features.

   -- Owen

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