Working with Static Sites

Chapter 1. Why Static Sites?

Brian Rinaldi

In the beginning, the web only consisted of static sites. In fact, the first website, created on August 6, 1991, and shown in Figure 1-1 was (and still is) technically a static site.

Figure 1-1. The first website from CERN

Of course, no one called them “static sites” back then as the entire web consisted of static HTML documents—there was no nonstatic alternative.

We’ve clearly come a long way since then, both in terms of the underlying technologies that make up the web and websites as well as how we expect a website to look and behave. So, why would static sites be a worthwhile option for today’s web?

First, let’s explore some of the benefits of static sites before we dive into how the changing technology behind static sites (i.e., static site generators—the topic of this book!) are making them viable again.

Benefits of Static Sites

Of the many reasons that static sites are coming back into fashion, two stand out:

• Static sites are fast.
• Static sites are secure.

Static Sites Are Fast

All developers seem to understand that website performance is critical. For example, recent studies have shown that users tend to abandon sites that take longer than three seconds to load (with a load time of under two seconds being considered optimal for mobile). Yet achieving that level of website performance can be difficult.

By their very nature, ...