Static Site Generator (SSG)

There was a time when a static site generator (SSG) was in the spotlight with the advent of a tool called Jekyll. I also built a blog a long time ago using Jekyll and GitHub Pages. The static site generator has the advantage of creating a great site without having to build or know the backend solutions necessary for rendering web pages, including databases. The resulting static site is implemented only with HTML (Hyper-Text Markup Language), CSS (Cascading Style Sheet), and JavaScript, and operates only with a browser.

For example, how do you implement a Category function without the help of a server? For this, a build process is required in advance. During this build process, Jekyll creates all the pages that need to exist for the category function in advance and hyperlinks them.

From a developer’s point of view, Jekyll was very attractive because of its high speed and the ability to package a pile of posts written in the Markdown language into a website at once. However, my blog was neglected, and when I thought deeply about the reasons for neglecting it, I was able to organize it in two ways.

One, it is difficult.

Jekyll was developed in a rather unfamiliar language called Ruby. There are a lot of alternative technologies for Jekyll now, and some of them may have been developed in a familiar language. Anyway, I’m not familiar with Ruby, and above all, I haven’t been able to get my hands on it since I had a few problems with Ruby’s version and package manager. I thought about switching to another alternative technology, but it was cumbersome to choose because there were so many, and it was obvious that even after I picked it, I would get tired of touching it and leave it alone.

Two, cumbersome.

Cumbersome? If you use Jekyll, you don’t need to build a separate backend, so it’s convenient, isn’t it? However, this is from the developer’s point of view. From the writer’s point of view, it was infinitely uncomfortable. As mentioned earlier, in order to register the written post, you need to build it on a separate PC where Ruby and Jekyll are installed. Since I ran my blog on GitHub, I had to go through a separate process called Commit/Push. When it comes to uploading photos taken with a cell phone, this is another new challenge. As you can see, this series of processes is difficult to do on a mobile phone or tablet.

Jekyll is a bad tool?

Because Jekyll is such a bad tool, I don’t want to say that I don’t recommend it. Static sites are superior in terms of performance and security due to their characteristics. There are many high-quality free themes in the community, and by using various plugins and Disqus, you can create a site that is better than WordPress. However, the point is that if you have a lot of cunningism like me, or if you want to leave notes or organization from time to time using your cell phone/tablet, it is easy to lose your original mind…

So Google Blogger?

Feeling skeptical about the Jekyll/Github page and looking back, these days, one-person content platforms such as Medium and Brunch seem to be in vogue. These are tools that allow you to focus only on writing, but perhaps the skepticism I felt in the background of the trend? I think there may be some of the same. Medium, the original platform, provides a neat editor, and articles with useful information help generate revenue for subscribers. For this reason, Medium itself is overflowing with great writers and writings, which is a big plus. Thanks, I got a lot of help too. However, I personally did not want to put such restrictions (of course, I do not write great articles), and passed the criticism that support for Hangul and Markdown was poor. A similar service, brunch, is also a pass. The velogs you see a lot these days are all good, but will the service continue? I was skeptical, and I like WordPress so much, but I was concerned that it had limitations such as storage space limitations and advertisements to be used for free. All that’s left is tistory and Google blogger, but if I had to evaluate it, would it be a decent service without any drawbacks? In the end, while I had a Google account, I chose Google Blogger.