Static Site Generators: A 2-hour Intro
Jessica Parsons
@verythorough
slides.com/verythorough/ssg-2hr
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About Me
Documentation Engineer
Instructor
Local Co-organizer
What we'll cover
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How we got here
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How static site generators work, and why they're useful
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How to choose a site generator
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How to make your own generated site
- How to keep learning after today
But first, a warm-up
Pair with a classmate and introduce yourselves. Then do the following steps on both of your computers:
- Visit https://jekyll-sustained.netlify.com/
- Each person navigate to a different page on the site.
- Right click on the page, and select View page source (or use a different method)
- Compare the source code for your two pages. How are they the same? How are they different?
A Little History
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Web pages as files
Simple Static Sites
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request "cats.html"
Web pages as files
Simple Static Sites
- Pros: pretty fast & secure, very simple
- Cons: repetitive to build
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Web pages as files
Simple Static Sites
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Templates & Databases
Let the computer do the work
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request "cats.php"
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get template
query database
fill content
Templates & Databases
Let the computer do the work
- Pros: quicker to build and change
- Cons: slower, less secure, more complex
Templates & Databases
Let the computer do the work
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Single-Page Apps (SPAs)
The browser as app server
- Pros: less time between pages
- Cons: slow first load; more work for client
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Static Site Generators to the Rescue!
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Static Site Generators
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Automating in advance
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(or database)
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Static Site Generators
Automating in advance
Static Site Generators
Web pages are files again
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request "cats.html"
Static Site Generators
The best of both worlds
(in many cases)
Pros:
- fast, secure, scalable on CDN
- computer still does the repetitive work
- can add JavaScript for between-page loads
Cons:
- ecosystem not as mature (yet), so can require more coding
Let's build a site!
Clicking this 👆 button will automatically:
- Connect your GitHub account to Netlify.
- Clone my sample repo to your GitHub account.
- Set your Netlify build settings and start building your site.
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Weighing
the Options
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Primary Considerations
- Familiarity of languages & tools used
- Availability/quality of docs & resources
- Features vs complexity
- Specialization (blogs, docs, etc.)
- Speed: to develop, build, load
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- 10 years old! Lots of users, tutorials, themes
- Originally made for blogs, but used for more
- Built with Ruby: versions can be a hassle
- Liquid templating: fairly easy to read
- Markdown content
- Configuration and data files in yaml: easy to read, but whitespace sensitive
- Builds can be slow for large sites
- Even older than Jekyll (by a few months)
- Focused on docs: more niche (less content), but popular
- Built with Python: integrate with Python code comments
- Jinja templating: fairly similar to Liquid
- Content in reStructuredText: very powerful, less known
(also supports Markdown) - Built-in versioning
- Multiple output formats, including PDF, LaTeX, ePub
- Few years old; very active development
- Built with Go, but doesn't require Go to run
- Go template language: steeper learning curve
- Content in Markdown, plus shortcodes
- Flexible and extendable, but complex
- Docs are extensive, but can be hard to read
- Dynamic menus and tables of contents
- Reputation for very fast builds
- Few years old; venture-funded development
- Lots of docs and other help content
- Built with JavaScript (React): very popular
- React component templating: steeper learning curve unless you're familiar with JS/React
- Content in Markdown or mdx
(powerful but JS-heavy) - Lots of plugins and themes (but still code-heavy)
- Static/SPA hybrid structure is fast to load
- Fairly new; built by Facebook
- Made for docs: simple built-in theme with menus, versioning, internationalization, and search
- Docs are short, but product is fairly simple
- Content in Markdown
- Also built with JavaScript/React, with same benefits and caveats as Gatsby
- React component templating
- Fast-loading static/SPA hybrid structure
- Newest of all (< 1 yr)
- Made for docs: simple built-in theme with menus, versioning, internationalization, and search
- Built with Vue, another JavaScript framework that's gaining popularity
- Content in Markdown with docs-focused extensions, plus ability to use Vue in Markdown
- Built-in "last updated" functionality
- Similar benefits & challenges to other JS-based generators
And so many more...
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How to evaluate
- Browse the docs
- Search for tutorials and reviews
- Search for themes or starters
- Explore the files in a sample project
- Try it out!
More to Explore
- Clone your repository and build locally
- Try another Jekyll starter:
- Skinny Bones (a fancier basic site)
- Tom Johnson's Documentation Theme
- Try other generators!
- Manage content with a Headless CMS like Netlify CMS
- Watch a video about the evolution of the CMS
Questions?
Find me on Twitter
@verythorough
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Thank you!
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slides.com/verythorough/ssg-2hr
Static Site Generators: A 2-hour Intro
By Jessica Parsons
Static Site Generators: A 2-hour Intro
A 2-hour intro to static site generators
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