Launching my new static site
After having spent too much money over the years on a Squarespace website that I hardly utilized, I decided it was time to simplify and downsize to a static website. Being a fan of the Julia programming language, I chose to use the Julia-based static site generator Franklin.jl. It has been a remarkably simple and enjoyable process, and while there are certainly many features I have not yet learned how to use, I am very pleased with the results.
Why did I decide to go static? I thought my previous website was very pretty. It opened to a page that cycled through several full page photos from field trips and field work that I have done during my schooling and research. The other pages on my site were nicely lain out with many high-res and beautiful photos of rocks, thin sections, or landscapes that I have taken over the years. It was certainly a nice website, but it was also a pain in the ass. Sure, the tools provided by Squarespace make it really easy to make pretty, nicely formatted layouts, but it added a level of complexity that made it extremely annoying to edit. It also meant I had to make a special layout when accessing it from a phone, or just live with an ugly mobile site. This all compounded to a website that I did not enjoy working on and that I was spending too much money on. Pretty pointless for a personal site to house my CV and information on my theses.
Over the years, as I have delved more into the world of tech, I have come to appreciate the simplicity of a static website. They are easy to use, easy to navigate, and easy to provide. I am hosting this site on GitHub and only pay $20/year for the domain registration, and my site has pretty much all the same information it had on Squarespace. I found that building the site was straightforward and only required reading the docs and some technical know-how. Making modifications is quite easy as all the pages are written in Markdown and can be done directly in my text editor before deployment. The site is simple enough that I can dive into the HTML and CSS files and make modifications without too much fear despite knowing very little HTML or CSS.
This is all very enjoyable in ways that I never really imagined before, but I think I understand why I like it so much more than my Squarespace site. The fact that I am able to put this together myself and modify it to my liking all from my text editor provides a feeling of ownership that I never had with my previous site. If I want to make my site do something, I can actually figure out how to do it, so long as it's not anything too resource-intensive. If I want to move my site to another hosting service, I can do it very easily. I could even host it myself if I really wanted to.
This is a relatable feeling that I have to my bicycle, especially in comparison to how I used to feel about my car before I sold it. I used to drive a Honda Fit, it was a great car, very affordable but had great utility, but at the end of the day it was still a car and so maintenance was never cheap or easy. Since I am no mechanic, modifications were purely accessory such as adding a roof rack or a rearview camera and personal repairs never went beyond changing the battery. When I compare that to my bicycle, it's a very different relationship. Repairs are usually quite cheap, and I am often able to do the repairs myself. Modifications are straightforward and give me so much flexibility in making my bike look and feel the way I want it to. I can change the handlebars, the saddle, the wheels, the tires, the fork, the pedals, even the frame if I am so inclined and none of these modifications are particularly challenging to do. If I don't know how to do the repairs, they are usually very easy to learn, and if I don't have the tools, I can pop down to the local bike co-op to use theirs. While my bike will never go as fast as my car did, it takes me to most places I need to go, and it is truly mine in ways that my car never was. I think this is similar to the static website, while it is not as powerful as my old website, it takes me where I need to go, and I am able to take ownership over it in ways I never could before.