As evidenced by the comments in this post, developers love developing new static site generators.
Unfortunately, we typically lack the same enthusiasm for actually writing content for said static sites.
So you end up with 1,000,000 developer blogs with an average of 1 post.
The title of which is “how I built this blog using X”
After having gone through this charade many times myself (I’m a high level procrastinator), if your goal is to publish on the internet, do not spend time creating a custom static site generator.
In fact, don’t use a static site generator at all (you inevitably won’t remember how it works and will have broken dependencies years later when it comes time to pen post number 2).
Just sign up for a basic site builder (Webflow if it’s a company site, squarespace if it’s a personal blog), pick a not-offensive template, and be done with it.
Trust me, nobody will think less of you.
By eliminating the decision points around building something, you can force yourself to not waste hours comparing CSS frameworks and instead actually write something of value for other people.
So developers like developing stuff. Yeah that probably about sums it up.
I don't think that's an obstacle to writing. Let's be honest, the average blog lifetime is probably lasts less than a dozen posts. The ones that last are weird outliers, and that's not a problem from choosing the wrong technology.
It absolutely has been for me, and I'm willing to bet if you actually track your time, you might be surprised.
Obsessing over building is like a warm blanket for someone who's a developer by trade. Writing in public, by contrast, will make a non-writer extremely uncomfortable and vulnerable.
And humans are super good at pain-avoidance.
I spent roughly 200 hours trying to be clever about building my last blog (experimenting with static site generators, headless CMS options, markdown flavors, CSS frameworks, build process, etc) when I was first getting enamored with the static site world.
Fast forward a few years, it turns out I built a monster that I can't remember how to use, nor do I care to.
And I realized instead of getting my ideas into the world, I hid behind that security blanket of "building."
Well do you actually want to write? If you describe writing as a pain, maybe writing just isn't your jam.
Seems pretty common that people have a romanticized idea of writing, and like the idea of being a writer much more than they actually enjoy the writing process.
Unfortunately, we typically lack the same enthusiasm for actually writing content for said static sites.
So you end up with 1,000,000 developer blogs with an average of 1 post.
The title of which is “how I built this blog using X”
After having gone through this charade many times myself (I’m a high level procrastinator), if your goal is to publish on the internet, do not spend time creating a custom static site generator.
In fact, don’t use a static site generator at all (you inevitably won’t remember how it works and will have broken dependencies years later when it comes time to pen post number 2).
Just sign up for a basic site builder (Webflow if it’s a company site, squarespace if it’s a personal blog), pick a not-offensive template, and be done with it.
Trust me, nobody will think less of you.
By eliminating the decision points around building something, you can force yourself to not waste hours comparing CSS frameworks and instead actually write something of value for other people.