Ever since I learned about creating static sites, I dropped dynamic ones like a hot potato. Goodbye clunky old CMS, hello Github Pages.
For my purposes, static sites are all I need. I enjoy blogging and creating portfolio sites, both of which serve up informational content. As a result, every user sees the same thing - a static site. I learned that a few tools are all I need to get up and running. The stack I’m using right now for this little blog is just Jekyll and Github Pages. That’s it!
Image via Scripted Tea
If I want to make a change, I can easily and quickly do so with a commit, then Github Pages deploys the site for me. This is perhaps my favorite part about going static - I can focus on development and let Github handle the rest. To be honest, I am not well versed in site deployment, so it’s something that I drag my feet doing. I used to be on Wordpress and whenever I made template changes I was ready to tear out my hair figuring out how to build, commit, and deploy the site. As a result, I rarely updated code. Fortunately, by being hosted on Pages, it is not only FREE but also freeing!
Here are a couple more things I’m super excited about with the move:
- Theme/layout changes are quick and easy. Once again, just a commit and a push - voilà! It’s live.
- Smaller codebase
- No need to deal with a database
- Did I mention that hosting is free?!
Of course, there are limitations to free hosting as well. Here are a few that I’ve come across:
- Github pages doesn’t support many Jekyll plugins
- Source repositories have a limit of 1GB
- Limit of 10 builds/hour
I know that a lot of people avoid Github Pages limitations by moving over to Netlify for deployment. However, since I’m just exploring, I’ll stick with Pages for now and perhaps eventually migrate to something like that. This entire project is open source, so feel free to take a look at the code. If you see a bad practice or if there’s a better way to do something, please tell me!!
Ok, enough tech talk. What is this site about, anyway?
Essentially, this is a sandbox blog for me to try new development ideas (think CSS tricks) and where I’d like to share what’s currently interesting me at the moment. Because believe me, I have a million thoughts and ideas in my brain, so it gets CROWDED in here. My husband can only take so much of my offloading! But here on the world wide web I’m sure there’s someone out there who also shares an interest or two with me!
Therefore, welcome to my playground. Have fun exploring!
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