Related: Blogging vs. Blog Setups
The Static Site Paradox
71–80 of 370 posts
Re: The Static Site Paradox
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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".
It generally does count as static though. In this context static has a technical meaning, not the dictionary definition. It's static from the server side, meaning that you don't need any special logic to serve it.
Re: The Static Site Paradox
#73There 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.
Good question, with answers ranging from "a bunch of hand-edited HTML files" to "a set of HTML files generated from a non-HTML syntax such as a markdown derivative or a programming language's object-literal syntax", with the latter (static site generators) being quite different from the former.
And then there's also SGML which has everything HTML, as a last-mile markup language for delivery to browsers, assumed to have available for authors, such as text macros and shared fragments for eg. menus, auto-generating document outlines for page navigation, processing markdown into HTML, filtering into RSS or SERPs, etc., and even moderately complex dynamic site features such as integrating external/syndicated content and screening/validating user comments for malicious or other undesired input such as script, broken comments, external/spam links, and the like.
Re: The Static Site Paradox
#74> the web doesn't belong just to software engineers. The more we make the web complex, the more we push normal users into the enclosures that we like to call social networks.
Big up this author. Here’s a recent podcast about the recent conference this quote came from (Squiggle Conf), https://changelog.com/jsparty/339
Re: The Static Site Paradox
#75There 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 definitely is a consensus on what static website means. Have you tried doing a basic Web search of the term?
> A pure static website in which each page has to be manually edited would be a headache.
There are static site generators for a reason.
Re: The Static Site Paradox
#76> Weird as it might be, it's not a great mystery why that is: it's easier to spin up a Wordpress blog than it is to figure out by yourself all the intermediate steps Or you could just use publii, an office suite of your choice, or type bad html and css by hand, then pass raw files on very cheap hosting providers, enjoying a clunky, and sometimes ugly, "website". The industry for this use-case works on looks and disco…
> Or you could just use publii, an office suite of your choice, or type bad html and css by hand, then pass raw files on very cheap hosting providers, enjoying a clunky, and sometimes ugly, "website".
WordPress folks are working to enable static generation using WordPress Playground. It will work pretty much like Publii does today.
https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-playground/issues/707
Re: The Static Site Paradox
#77> Find an SSG (or handcraft everything yourself) I think this came a bit too late? Astro solves this well, there are other solutions too. From startups building webflow-like SSG platforms to frameworks like astro that requires basic markdown and html.
Yeah, I’ve found Astro to be the perfect solution without compromise. You can have a 100% static site without JS, and you can add in JS only as needed.
It doesn’t feel heavyweight like similar/older SSGs doc and it lets you write TSX-like syntax for reusable components (which I really like).
Re: The Static Site Paradox
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have to politely disagree. If you ever run a website for business/portfolio etc. the number of people more likely to contact you using a contact form is far greater than just telling them to email you. Contact forms also scale well if you need to categorize and channel the queries to different people or need more specific info.
Yes, and almost all clients will ask you to put a contact form on the site.
Nothing stops you from embedding a contact form on a page.
Netlify event has a built in workflow where they will record the action so you do not have to setup any infrastructure.
Re: The Static Site Paradox
#79In 2016, I was working at an agency making brochureware for local businesses. I remember one of our clients wanted us to add a small iframe for a reservation system to their website they had built. They sent us a single word document. Turns out they were just exporting it as HTML (which it seems like Word does still support today!) and throwing it onto some cheap shared web hosting provider. It worked great for them.…
I mean, isn't the whole idea of a web browser kind of contrary to the ideals of the web? It implicitly divides people into speakers and listeners.
In a parallel universe, web browsers are called webitors, and they can edit websites as well as view them. People can suggest changes. People can publish annotations. Web hosting is like email--pick (or build) any service you like and pick (or build) any client you like. The protocols will sort it out.
Re: The Static Site Paradox
#80> normal users are stuck with a bunch of greedy clowns that make them pay for every little thing Huh? You're not confined to Automattic or WP-Engine, there are tons and tons of regular web hosting providers with Wordpress and a bunch of other stuff included in a standard hosting package, you can use the free Wordpress, and you can self-host. That's the whole point of Wordpress being open source, and it's working as i…
> Static site generators are used by technologists who want to tinker and check all the boxes in whatever Chrome's latest devtool benchmark tool is called No? Downloading Hugo, getting a random theme and writing a few articles is pretty simple and requires no more tinkering than doing the same with a Wordpress (okay, one's actions are big buttons in a UI, the other is copy pasting commands, but in terms of effort , t…
I think you should reexamine the Hugo getting started workflow. I think it is pretty scary for a non tech literate person. Even as a programmer, I thought the initial bootstrap to getting a theme in place is clunky. Should come with an out of the box template that lets someone immediately bang out content.
I could guide Mom how to connect to a Wordpress host. I could not say the same for Hugo.