Notes

I’ve wanted to write a blog for a while to keep track of my development and scraps of knowledge. Here’s my experience between a few static site generators I’m deciding on.

Hugo

I decided to forgo the prepackaged binary for the fun of using go get. I like to think that I can see all the text scroll by and understand what’s really happening. That new site builder and web server feel super fast!

$ go get -u -v --tags extended github.com/gohugoio/hugo
$ hugo new site test-site
$ cd test-site
$ hugo server -D  # Same as --buildDrafts

O, nothing is served. I see, I need a theme. O, that https://themes.gohugo.io gallery, talk about eye candy. Terminal, I choose you! O, Git Submodules, I still can’t decide if I like you.

$ git init
$ git submodule add https://github.com/panr/hugo-theme-terminal.git themes/terminal
$ echo 'theme = "terminal"' >> config.toml
$ hugo serve

ooOOoo, hey there sexy. Sexy content to go with that sexy theme.

$ hugo new posts/beginning.md
$ vim content/posts/beginning.md
$ hugo serve -D  # Same as --buildDrafts

O! The page automatically refreshes on content changes, what fun! And then to publish.

$ hugo
$ ls public/

So, GitHub Pages refuses to allow anything but a flat structure for User Pages sites. I guess we’re going to follow the submodule public/ model in Hosting on GitHub.

$ rm -r public/
$ git submodule add -- git@github.com:e4r7hbug/e4r7hbug.github.io.git public
$ hugo
$ cd public/
$ git add .
$ git commit -v  # Same as --verbose
$ git push

Jekyll

This seems to be the biggest behemoth at the moment with the backing of GitHub Pages. It’s a good default, has a large community, still gets regular releases since 2008 it seems. Ruby ain’t so bad.

Setup was as simple as promised.

$ gem install bundler jekyll
$ jekyll new test-site
$ cd test-site
$ jekyll serve

New post is all about that naming.

$ vim _posts/2019-02-13-beginning.md

Refresh the page and content is there, nice! Publishing seems to be with a simple push.

$ git add .
$ git commit -v  # Same as --verbose
$ git push

Nikola

Let’s use Pipenv for the fun of it.

$ touch Pipfile
$ pipenv install --skip-lock pip wheel setuptools
$ pipenv install --skip-lock nikola[extras]
$ pipenv run nikola init test-site
# Lots of questions to answer in the wizard
$ mv Pipfile test-site/
$ cd test-site/
$ pipenv run nikola auto

Let’s create a post.

$ pipenv run nikola new_post -e

O, reStructuredText, I used to use you all the time with Python documentation. Lately I feel like Markdown. And it looks like by default conf.py comes configured for such a thing, bravo.

$ vim posts/beginning.md

Compiling and livereload are a little sluggish, but bearable. The default theme is basic and, how nice, tries to use the full width of the viewport.

$ pipenv run nikola build
$ ls output/

Hm…not sure how to switch to docs/.

Ending Thoughts

  • It seems like everyone wants to show off how fast they with those compile times in the server logs

    • Hugo is fastest < Jekyll < Nikola is slowest

  • GitHub Pages has some tight integration with Jekyll