It's fun to see articles like that being posted on HN; it's reassuring, in a way: I've been building my own SSG ( https://github.com/hexanal/fredmercy-blog ) to be "simple but powerful", and by my own admission it's already a bloated mess, understandable only by its insane creator. At some point, just like John here, I once wondered if I should go back to straight HTML.
If we're talking about "Developer Experience", it's cool: I can edit everything with ease in my IDE of choice. To be honest, what I'm missing most with these solutions is a Content Management part: the ability to add content to the website from a mobile device, for example, would be killer.
Now all I need is an awesome WYSIWYG HTML editor for mobile...
I haven't formally studied computer science nor programming, so it's very hard for me, but I wanted to build a set of tools that would eventually allow for what I call "block-stitching": a UI that mixes the data, its editor (form fields), and its destination template.
The idea is to be able to quickly build a web page using nestable components, and being able to export/import the structured data, in as many formats as possible.
But since I hardly ever interact with other devs, I might have missed similar projects which are mature enough already? (I just like to build my own crap, it's fun)
I'm doing the same thing but I wonder if I should even write something about it, hehe
Seeing all those HN posts about new static website generators and then your post makes me think that the important thing here is the concept of it, rather than specific implementations. I kind of like the multitude of options because it tells me that there's demand for that stuff, and we're all trying to find the most elegant solutions.
As a webdev, I'm happy to admit I'm not a programmer. I just dump some data in HTML templates, sprinkle some CSS and JS, while trying to give devs, editors, and users the tools to manage/navigate a website without much pain and suffering.
To echo what the other replies are saying: mine has been running on a DigitalOcean droplet since early 2019 and I only had to reboot it once.
It syncs everything, the iOS app and web dashboard are adequate. I would recommend it (but I haven't tried anything else, other than Google Drive or Dropbox, of course)
As a web developer, I'm more focused on good UX and a clear UI than the technology I use to get there; but these days it seems the tools are getting way too complicated to use in most situations. Then again it might be that I'm old and I miss the good old days when we could "Keep It Super Simple"...
Super valid point. I've been a frontend dev for a while and I'm comfortable with HTML and CSS but I can definitely imagine switching to something else. The sunk-cost fallacy thing is real, though.
But the complexity arises from wanting to make apps with something meant for simple documents. That being said, even building the simplest website nowadays requires a mind-boggling knowledge of the idiosyncrasies of the "languages".
I want to lose my job; I want the next best thing to be completely different but still allow for creativity and productivity.
If we're talking about "Developer Experience", it's cool: I can edit everything with ease in my IDE of choice. To be honest, what I'm missing most with these solutions is a Content Management part: the ability to add content to the website from a mobile device, for example, would be killer.
Now all I need is an awesome WYSIWYG HTML editor for mobile...