This person seems to be suffering from the Curse of Knowledge. It’s unsurprising to me that non-technical users will gravitate towards the tools that look like what they know (packaged software with forms and buttons) instead of something that they’ve never once looked at (except perhaps in anguish).
The Static Site Paradox
301–310 of 370 posts
Re: The Static Site Paradox
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another "interactive" part: contact forms. Not every business site wants comments, but they'll probably want a contact form. Putting an email address out is an alternative, but handling the input pipeline is better. On a static site that requires finding a service they trust to handle the submission and correctly plug it in their site. It becomes another moving part, potentially another bill that needs to be paid sep…
This may blow your mind but you can have static pages AND a dynamic endpoint for form submission. You could even put such endpoints under a common directory, /cgi-bin/ perhaps.
Just let me put a blinking "under construction" gif on my form page while I'm trying to figure how this cgi thing works.
Re: The Static Site Paradox
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just install any old file based caching plugin like KeyCdn Cache Enabler or Gator Cache and a Wordpress install becomes a static site for every single request until content is updated. Takes all of 5 minutes, win win for all involved.
A bit off topic since the thread here was related to performance, but caching in WP doesn't solve the other big problem of security. A caching layer can indeed make WP act much like a static site, though the cache still lives on your server rather than a global CDN layer. Behind that cache, though, you still have the live WP server with all the potential security risks that come with it. Caching is a nice perf gain,…
Aside from some once-in-a-blue-moon security breach events, how does better security help a salesperson sell more stuff?
Re: The Static Site Paradox
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
A bit off topic since the thread here was related to performance, but caching in WP doesn't solve the other big problem of security. A caching layer can indeed make WP act much like a static site, though the cache still lives on your server rather than a global CDN layer. Behind that cache, though, you still have the live WP server with all the potential security risks that come with it. Caching is a nice perf gain,…
Aside from some once-in-a-blue-moon security breach events, how does better security help a salesperson sell more stuff?
If gross sales is literally the only important metric in software engineering we've already failed.
Though on the cost side security breaches can be expensive, as can the endless task of updates and maintenance required for a live server. Live servers can also be a scaling bottleneck, often that isn't too important but it would be for anything that is highly seasonal or has large spikes of use during Black Friday events or similar.
Re: The Static Site Paradox
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
You said it yourself. The tech you're suggesting didn't meet their requirements. Once it does, they will use it. A marketing site SHOULD be optimized for the editor. This is a failure of the dev, not the marketing person.
my confusion is why it's their requirements that need to get met, not say, the readers' requirements.
Better editor performance, more agility, the faster they can test stuff, the faster they can check what works -> better marketing.
Re: The Static Site Paradox
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
How are you handling commonality between pages with plain html pages? As long as you don’t use iframes, you have to manually sync everything that’s shared or almost the same on alle pages (header, footer, navigation). That’s pretty annoying.
You only need to allow PHP to run in .html files (if you insist your files being named .html(
That’s what you would call
> Nowadays, if I want a static site I just start with a folder of html files.
? With that argument, we can also calculate 10 million digits of pi in HTMl by renaming our C files to .html. If someone tells me they’re using a collection of html files, I’m assuming they mean static html pages without server side scripting.
Re: The Static Site Paradox
#307For a friend I made this: https://en.hayovasweets.com/
It’s mostly list of markdowns and images in folders. Everything else generates during deployment on GitHub:actions
It was simpler to show GitHub desktop rather than installing something like Wordpress machinery monster and spent hours to teach how to use it. Now the process is simple:
1. Create a folder
2. Put there markdown and images
3. Commit
Re: The Static Site Paradox
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
I switched to a SSG for the ease of editing! Offline, version-controlled editing with regular expressions, linters and other text-based magic. When you maintain a few hundred pages for a living, this is a game changer. For the average user though, you are 100% correct. You need a UI that they will understand. Explaining git to them is not a good idea.
Except it is a good idea. Making everything convenient for the user has been a thorn in my industry for a long, long time, resulting in massive, complex machinery that is controlled by an HMI which amounts to "user push, machine go" and copious amounts of magic happen between those two steps. I see the same issue as I enter software development. We treat the users like ridiculous idiots, shackling them the ignorance…
It always boils down to how many users you want to engage with your product.
The reality is that you can create a great product that engages with users, using transparent processes that can be tinkered by and with a ton of free customization features, you will lose a huge amount of market share to a competitor with a more simple interface (and probably a less efficient and more complex machinery behind it).
> As someone who is constantly learning new things to try and stay current, fights for the right to repair and uses FOSS whenever possible, I just can't get behind the thinking that brings is to the conclusion that marketers should be making these kinds of decisions based on convenience.
You and marketers have very different priorities and targets, of course they don't reach your same conclusion
Re: The Static Site Paradox
#309A professional software engineer would never think of a static site as a personal website. On the other hand, normal users don't have an understanding of static/dynamic site and which one to choose. It is entirely up to the non-greedy/greedy clowns to go for a complex CMS written in some programming language initially by themselves or a WordPress or HTML static site initially. I think the author should have told whet…
Why would a professional developer never think of a static site as a personal website?
Because when you have the tools/technologies to do things dynamically, you forget to do things statically with your bare hands.
Re: The Static Site Paradox
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow it's amazing how noticeably faster than is that every other website. We really messed up the internet.
Speed is the most important UX feature. I've emphasized this, repeatedly, to ~every product owner I've worked with in my 26-year career.
I believe it's morally wrong to make software that makes people wait needlessly. If your software makes me wait, it better have something to do with the speed of light.