Publishing Static Sites

Everything old is new again. There’s a growing trend of publishing static websites, much like the days of the early Web. Back then, it was easy to publish. You just needed to create a new file, and upload it with FTP. The difference is that today’s tooling is far superior. We have build tools that automate process and ensure consistency. Instead of using FTP, now you push to a Git repository.

Ivan Storck (@ivanoats) did a great job with his presentation last night at Refresh Seattle. He talked about the benefits and trade-offs of static websites. He showed us a great site, StaticGen, which tracks a collection of static site generators for a variety of languages. Then, Storck lead us in a workshop, where we installed Hexo. He showed us just how easy it is to use. Storck has a great presentation style that was engaging, and allowed the audience to ask questions along the way.

After finishing up with Hexo, he showed us how easy it is to publish the site on Aerobatic’s platform. His company, Aerobatic, is a web host that specializes in static websites. It currently only integrates with Bitbucket, but Github integration is on their roadmap. This presentation definitely has me thinking about using static websites for future projects.