~/blog/ $ cat f1rst-p0st

date: 2024-09-02

I migrated this website to Zola.

Previously, it was handmade html files. While I love this approach, I knew that it would come back haunt me if (when) I wanted to change site-wide layouts or theming. For that reason, I wanted to switch over to a static site generator.

In a mix of not-in-house syndrome and overconfidence, I started by writing my own SSG. While this was a fun learning excercise and (given infinite time) a polished version of it would have been perfect for my needs, it turns out that making an ergonomic and powerful templating language takes a lot of work.

With my reality sufficiently checked, I set out on a search.

I eventually decided on Zola for a couple of reasons:

• it's a CLI tool, so I don't have to set up a Node.js environment for my static site.
• it's written in Rust, so I can understand & modify it's code.
• it provides nifty features, such as the syntax highlighting (seen below) and local serving & reloading to speed up writing.

fn main() {
    println!("Hello, World!");
}

So far, I'm happy with this choice & I recommend Zola to anyone else looking for a clean & simple SSG. Now I just need a half-finished project to write about...

..return to /blog/