manuel.kiessling.net VS Metalsmith

https://manuel.kiessling.net

Some personal favorites:

Applying The Clean Architecture to Go applications (2012):

https://manuel.kiessling.net/2012/09/28/applying-the-clean-a...

Object-orientation and inheritance in JavaScript: a comprehensive explanation (2012):

https://manuel.kiessling.net/2012/03/23/object-orientation-a...

Why developing software without tests is like driving a car without brakes (2011):

https://manuel.kiessling.net/2011/04/07/why-developing-witho...

Tutorial: Single Page Applications with a Serverless Backend and Infrastructure as Code (2021):

https://manuel.kiessling.net/2021/05/02/tutorial-react-singl...

https://manuel.kiessling.net

Covers topics on architecting, building, deploying and running software and systems for the web based on open source tools with lean methodologies.

Sorry, that's not minimalism. gwern.net isn't either; I'd call that "brutalism" instead.

THIS is minimalism: https://manuel.kiessling.net

Precisely in the sense of "NOT a lot going on at all times". Just the content, presented pleasently.

And importantly, it's not only minimalism in look-and-feel, but also technically: even a long post with an embedded image like https://manuel.kiessling.net/2021/05/02/tutorial-react-singl... weighs in at under 200 KiB. Loads in under 3 seconds even on "slow 3G" in Chrome. 362 milliseconds via my office's wifi.

Also, no JavaScript. Nothing moves or jumps. Perfectly usable and consumable in a CLI browser like Lynx.

All of that without looking brutalist.

It’s also a great extension of a CV, at least I see my https://manuel.kiessling.net blog that way.

I have a very oldschool "FTP webspace" with Ionos (from 1&1) - it's really just your run-of-the-mill static website hosting package, basically unchanged since the late nineties.

Well, it surely changed a lot under the hood from the provider's perspective, I assume, but from the user's perspective, it works as it has always worked: you have a domain, you have an (S)FTP account, you upload your static HTML/CSS files, et voilá, you have a homepage/blog.

I create my HTML/CSS locally using Hugo. The source for my homepage and its blog posts can be seen at https://github.com/manuelkiessling/manuel.kiessling.net.

Super simple, no headaches, no downtimes. Less than 4 bucks per month.

I do depend on Ionos, of course, but as it's only HTML and CSS, it with every web site hosting solution on the planet.

I also depend on Hugo, of course, but Hugo is open source, and I've even stored the Hugo binaries for different platforms locally.

My homepage is at https://manuel.kiessling.net/.

Metalsmith — the best customizable SSG

I use Metalsmith. Been happy with it. I build my site into a self-contained nginx docker image.

const Metalsmith = require('metalsmith') const markdown = require('@metalsmith/markdown') const layouts = require('metalsmith-layouts') const permalinks = require('@metalsmith/permalinks') const collections = require('metalsmith-collections') Metalsmith(__dirname) .metadata({ sitename: 'Website Name', description: "Website description.", generator: 'Metalsmith', url: 'https://metalsmith.io/' }) .source('./src') .destination('./build') // .clean(true) .use( collections({ projects: 'pages/*.md', reverse: true, refer: true }) ) .use(markdown()) .use(permalinks()) .use( layouts({ engineOptions: { helpers: { formattedDate: function (date) { return new Date(date).toLocaleDateString() } } } }) ) .build(function (err, files) { if (err) throw err })

I also started to move to hugo, but they didn't merge the pr [2] which would have helped in the transition. :(

The look is still similar to what it was in the beginning, in terms of colors at least.

[1] https://github.com/metalsmith/metalsmith

Metalsmith

A static site generator I've been enjoying lately (and using for my blog) is Metalsmith: https://metalsmith.io/

It feel like it's the best of both worlds, because it's simple to learn and customize, but there are plugins for the things you don't want to spend time writing yourself.

For example, I'm using plugins to: check for broken links, generate an RSS feed, and run a test server with automatic reloading.

But then I was able to easily add in my own code to handle relative links, generate Graphviz diagrams, and format dates.

One other recommendation: I hated almost every template language I ran across (Hugo's, Liquid, Nunjucks, EJS), but I'm thrilled with the simplicity of Handlebars (https://handlebarsjs.com/), although it is a bit limiting and the "block helper with parameters" syntax is strange (perhaps an indicator that I'm trying to do too much in the templating language!).

I believe Metalsmith [1] is trying that approach

[1] https://metalsmith.io/