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The Static Site Paradox

kristoff.it

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Re: The Static Site Paradox

#41

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

lupusreal wrote: post #31
paulpauper wrote: post #2

There is still not a censuses as to the definition of a static website. Is a website without a MYSQL database still static if it has JavaScript or php template include files? A pure static website in which each page has to be manually edited would be a headache.

This is the first time I've ever heard of somebody being confused about this. If the server is serving dynamically generated documents, then it isn't static. A static website can be perfectly represented as a directory of files being served by python -m http.server . No PHP templates, that should be obvious.

I agree with you; not even SSI.

Re: The Static Site Paradox

#42

Post by parasti »

Maybe I misunderstand, but this feels misdirected. As someone who's employed by "greedy clowns" (web development agencies I guess?), I continuously observe that people pay for what saves them time. Our entire profession is built on this premise. If you have a person doing interesting things, does it really matter if they write their own HTML or pay someone else to write it?

The web is turning increasingly monolithic entirely thanks to the modern social network conglomerate. That has nothing to do with the choice of technology.

Re: The Static Site Paradox

#43

Post by smankoo »

lqet wrote: post #12

> If you didn't know any better, you would expect almost all normal users to have [2] and professional engineers to have something like [1], but it's actually the inverse: only few professional software engineers can "afford" to have the second option as their personal website, and almost all normal users are stuck with overcomplicated solutions. I am confused, the inverse would be that professional engineers have [2…

Yes. That is confusingly phrased. Took me a sec too.

Re: The Static Site Paradox

#45

Post by kristoff_it »

intellectronica wrote: post #39

The reason SSGs are primarily interesting to software developers is that the software architecture of the site is primarily interesting to software developers. Other people (both authors and readers) don't care how the pages are produced, they only care that the pages are there.

> Other people (both authors and readers) don't care how the pages are produced, they only care that the pages are there.

Readers, sure. Authors? Absolutely not true. Some authors might not be tech savvy enough to know better, but they are immensely influenced by the process of getting the content online. That's the whole reason why there's a huge industry around publishing content on the internet.

Re: The Static Site Paradox

#46

Post by enriquto »

justsomehnguy wrote: post #15
paulpauper wrote: post #2

There is still not a censuses as to the definition of a static website. Is a website without a MYSQL database still static if it has JavaScript or php template include files? A pure static website in which each page has to be manually edited would be a headache.

> There is still not a censuses as to the definition of a static website Static website can be served by `cat index.html`

> Static website can be served by `cat index.html`

For sure, but that's not a sufficient definition. You need to add some constraints to the contents of the html. Otherwise, you can put a huge javascript program in there that hallucinates a new page each time you render it. This shouldn't count as "static".

Re: The Static Site Paradox

#47

Post by kristoff_it »

parasti wrote: post #42

Maybe I misunderstand, but this feels misdirected. As someone who's employed by "greedy clowns" (web development agencies I guess?), I continuously observe that people pay for what saves them time. Our entire profession is built on this premise. If you have a person doing interesting things, does it really matter if they write their own HTML or pay someone else to write it? The web is turning increasingly monolithic…

> As someone who's employed by "greedy clowns" (web development agencies I guess?)

Maybe click the link so you don't have to guess (wrong)?

Re: The Static Site Paradox

#48

Post by oleganza »

rwbt wrote: post #34

Static sites are great until you need to have a contact form or want to add basic comments. Yes, you can deploy javascript that uses external services to add such functionality to static sites- but with a basic WordPress site, you get everything right out of the box.

I came here to write this exact comment. The article is wrong in assuming that WP is wasteful. It gives huge optionality to the users: engineers probably can afford going with a static page and then changing the entire architecture of their webpage once they need some interactivity, but non-engineers want to go with a scalable solution: where they start with a contact info and slowly end up with a personal shop or whatnot without reinventing the setup at each phase transition.

Speaking of optionality and opportunity costs: many engineers are trained to see the unseen opportunity costs in technology ("YAGNI" and "tech debt" are often used terms), but often fail to see the economic opportunity costs: those that would waste time and cognitive effort of human beings, not the machines. Example: many engineers like to fantasize about micropayments architectures "because efficiency", but people cannot calculate those. They are better off with a nice round monthly subscription just to minimize number of microdecisions they have to go through daily.

Re: The Static Site Paradox

#49

Post by ciroduran »

dhotson wrote: post #14

Most people's expectations of what a "basic website" should do have gone way up over time. Even as a programmer, I've fallen into the static site generator trap a few times. It's annoying to start a side project with a static site generator and then realise I want to add a small feature and suddenly I wish I'd just started with a simple Rails or PHP app. Nowadays, if I want a static site I just start with a folder of…

I've been posting to my personal website for 20+ years and it's been something like: basic HTML -> Drupal (whew) -> Wordpress -> basic HTML (via Jekyll).

The fundamental rule I've set myself against feature-bloating in my website is defining what I want it to be: an archive of things I've done. As an archive, I want it to be very durable in time. Thus, static file that are dead-easy to copy around, mirror and make it work in any hosting platform.

It did take me a while to nail having a bilingual site, though :) but at least it's a price I paid once.

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