Ivy – A static website generator built in Python • Hacker News Board

Re: Ivy – A static website generator built in Python

#41

Post by bgrohman » Sun, Jan 28, 2018, 4:30 PM UTC

crdoconnor wrote: post #36

bgrohman wrote: post #21

It looks nice, but I guess I still[1] don’t understand the proliferation of simple static site generators. It’s pretty easy (and fun!) to build your own that works exactly as you want it to. And I don’t think a static site generator is suitable for non-technical users. Is there an in-between type of user technical enough to use a static site generator but not able to write their own? Or maybe the proliferation is onl…

>It looks nice, but I guess I still[1] don’t understand the proliferation of simple static site generators. It’s pretty easy (and fun!) to build your own that works exactly as you want it to. I don't think that's true. It looks deceptively easy up front but the subtleties involved actually make it pretty hard. I've tried hugo, jekyll and pelican and they've all pissed me off for one reason or another. A common issue…

It makes sense that the static site generators with lots of bells an whistles are harder to get right, especially if they’re trying to build an ecosystem with plugins and themes where others can contribute. I’m considering the _simple_ generators like the one posted here, though. My original thought/question was why not just write your own if you have a simple use case? There have been some good answers here such as no programming knowledge, lack of experience with html/css, or wanting to spend your time on other projects.

Re: Ivy – A static website generator built in Python

#42

Post by bgrohman » Sun, Jan 28, 2018, 4:32 PM UTC

bane wrote: post #38

bgrohman wrote: post #21

It looks nice, but I guess I still[1] don’t understand the proliferation of simple static site generators. It’s pretty easy (and fun!) to build your own that works exactly as you want it to. And I don’t think a static site generator is suitable for non-technical users. Is there an in-between type of user technical enough to use a static site generator but not able to write their own? Or maybe the proliferation is onl…

Learning how to program, especially when one doesn't come about it through self-selected autodidactism, can often seem to be an insurmountable challenge to people who don't know how. This applies to even extremely technical, highly intelligent people. Often they recognize that there's an extraordinary time component to learning, and they optimize around that in other ways. Learning to program is a weird thing because…

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

Re: Ivy – A static website generator built in Python

#43

Post by TheAceOfHearts » Sun, Jan 28, 2018, 4:39 PM UTC

dod9er wrote: post #13

Sorry for offtopic, but I´ve seen many nice-looking website generators here, but being a backend-guy I struggle more with the frontend, getting a nice layout/theme/font without deepdiving into css/js/html. Any suggestions here ? Any Wysiwyg-Editor which generates a reasonable output ?

* Avoid custom fonts. You probably don't need a custom font. Just use system fonts. Using built-in fonts will allow your site to load faster.

* Getting a "nice layout/theme" is a design problem. I'd suggest following someone's style guide. I'm fond of the U.S. Web Design System [0] since it's lightweight and accessible. Disagree with their suggestion to use a custom font.

* Keep the layout as simple as possible, with a focus on content. You can go incredibly far with semantic HTML and a smattering of CSS. I don't think it requires a deep-dive.

[0] https://designsystem.digital.gov/

Re: Ivy – A static website generator built in Python

#44

Post by rubenbe » Sun, Jan 28, 2018, 4:43 PM UTC

bgrohman wrote: post #21

It looks nice, but I guess I still[1] don’t understand the proliferation of simple static site generators. It’s pretty easy (and fun!) to build your own that works exactly as you want it to. And I don’t think a static site generator is suitable for non-technical users. Is there an in-between type of user technical enough to use a static site generator but not able to write their own? Or maybe the proliferation is onl…

I've a site deployed using Lektor[0] for a slightly technically inclined user, who gets a UI to edit his site and when ready to publish, just click the button.

[0] https://www.getlektor.com/

Re: Ivy – A static website generator built in Python

#45

Post by mattkevan » Sun, Jan 28, 2018, 4:43 PM UTC

b5 wrote: post #25

bgrohman wrote: post #21

It looks nice, but I guess I still[1] don’t understand the proliferation of simple static site generators. It’s pretty easy (and fun!) to build your own that works exactly as you want it to. And I don’t think a static site generator is suitable for non-technical users. Is there an in-between type of user technical enough to use a static site generator but not able to write their own? Or maybe the proliferation is onl…

I'm one of those people who falls into that group -- I can, and have, used a static site generator, but have nearly zero programming knowledge so couldn't make one of my own. The biggest issue I have now is choosing which one to use. I've mostly used Hugo, with good results, but always have that slight niggle wondering if there's something that would work a bit better for me.

That’s the same for me. While I consider myself to be fairly technical, I’m not a programmer. Given enough time and googling I could probably write my own, but it would be a struggle.

However I’ve had lots of success building sites with Jekyll and love the speed with which it’s possible to get something up and running.

Re: Ivy – A static website generator built in Python

#46

Post by crdoconnor » Sun, Jan 28, 2018, 5:02 PM UTC

bgrohman wrote: post #41

crdoconnor wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It looks nice, but I guess I still[1] don’t understand the proliferation of simple static site generators. It’s pretty easy (and fun!) to build your own that works exactly as you want it to. I don't think that's true. It looks deceptively easy up front but the subtleties involved actually make it pretty hard. I've tried hugo, jekyll and pelican and they've all pissed me off for one reason or another. A common issue…

It makes sense that the static site generators with lots of bells an whistles are harder to get right, especially if they’re trying to build an ecosystem with plugins and themes where others can contribute. I’m considering the _simple_ generators like the one posted here, though. My original thought/question was why not just write your own if you have a simple use case? There have been some good answers here such as…

I think even "simple" generators are harder than they look. Plus, those 'bell and whistle' features quickly end up becoming critical once you scale up from a few pages.

Also yea, don't really want to do CSS and web design just to put a bit of content online. Hence why these things exist.

Re: Ivy – A static website generator built in Python

#47

Post by BeetleB » Sun, Jan 28, 2018, 5:22 PM UTC

bgrohman wrote: post #37

BeetleB wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is there an in-between type of user technical enough to use a static site generator but not able to write their own? Or maybe the proliferation is only because they are both easy and fun to create? Not sure if you mean to ask why people don't create their own static sites (without generators), or did you mean dynamic sites using PHP/Ruby/Python? For the argument over dynamic sites: Yes - the type that does not want…

Hi, thanks, that all makes sense. I was asking why there are so many static site generators and why you wouldn’t just create a custom static site generator yourself, not why you would use one. I use one myself. Based on some of the other replies, I can see that there are use cases for not creating your own - when you aren’t a programmer, or when you don’t know or care to learn html and css, or when an existing genera…

>I was asking why there are so many static site generators and why you wouldn’t just create a custom static site generator yourself,

Because there are an unlimited number of things to create, and only a finite time in your life?

Re: Ivy – A static website generator built in Python

#48

Post by ams6110 » Sun, Jan 28, 2018, 5:51 PM UTC

crdoconnor wrote: post #36

bgrohman wrote: post #21

It looks nice, but I guess I still[1] don’t understand the proliferation of simple static site generators. It’s pretty easy (and fun!) to build your own that works exactly as you want it to. And I don’t think a static site generator is suitable for non-technical users. Is there an in-between type of user technical enough to use a static site generator but not able to write their own? Or maybe the proliferation is onl…

>It looks nice, but I guess I still[1] don’t understand the proliferation of simple static site generators. It’s pretty easy (and fun!) to build your own that works exactly as you want it to. I don't think that's true. It looks deceptively easy up front but the subtleties involved actually make it pretty hard. I've tried hugo, jekyll and pelican and they've all pissed me off for one reason or another. A common issue…

> Ivy seems to have "solved" this problem by having almost no themes. This is not exactly the solution I was thinking of...

Yes, it really is a chicken-egg problem where I think you need to start with at least a half-dozen attractive themes to get attention.

Theme designers are not going to build themes for a site generator that nobody uses. And nobody (relatively) is going to use a site generator that has only a "document" theme.

Generators like Hugo, for whatever their faults, have dozens of really nice-looking themes so it's easy to find something close to what you want and either use it as-is or make some minor tweaks.

Re: Ivy – A static website generator built in Python

#49

Post by weberc2 » Sun, Jan 28, 2018, 6:18 PM UTC

bgrohman wrote: post #21

It looks nice, but I guess I still[1] don’t understand the proliferation of simple static site generators. It’s pretty easy (and fun!) to build your own that works exactly as you want it to. And I don’t think a static site generator is suitable for non-technical users. Is there an in-between type of user technical enough to use a static site generator but not able to write their own? Or maybe the proliferation is onl…

> I guess I still[1] don’t understand the proliferation of simple static site generators

> It’s pretty easy (and fun!) to build your own

Seems like you answered your own question. :)

Re: Ivy – A static website generator built in Python

#50

Post by frozenport » Sun, Jan 28, 2018, 6:20 PM UTC

luckydude wrote: post #31

I love this sort of static generator for a non-obvious (perhaps) reason: you can version control the source. I find that hugely useful when maintaining a complex site. I wrote a similar tool, years and years ago, that took what looked like "troff -ms" input and spit out the whole website, complete with a site map. Here's an example http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/bkdocs/UG/tmp/Introduction.html if you go up a directory level…

Site was done in php with peak user load being around 200 simultaneously users. I had git on the webroot and a chron job that dumped the sql, and pushed the whole thing every night.