Week 52 of the year 2024

- 2 minutes read - 305 words

This Week’s Challenges:

Diving into Static Site Generation with Hugo

This week, I embarked on a new adventure: exploring static site generators. I chose Hugo, a popular and powerful option, and quickly realized it would be a bit of a learning curve.

Initially, I spent a good amount of time familiarizing myself with Hugo’s system, its template engine, and the available themes. The learning curve was steeper than expected, but I eventually settled on the Ananke theme, which I found both visually appealing and easy to customize.

This experience brought back memories of my earlier web development days. I’ve worked with various CMS and frameworks like Joomla, Drupal, MediaWiki, and Django. While Hugo is a different beast, its template engine reminded me a lot of Django’s, which I found surprisingly comforting.

This week’s challenge has been a valuable learning experience. I’ve gained a practical understanding of static site generation and discovered a new tool that I can potentially use for future projects. I’m excited to continue exploring Hugo and see what other creative possibilities it offers.

Key Takeaways:

  • Static site generators like Hugo offer a unique approach to web development, sort of paradigm shift if you will. I’d compare this to compiled vs. interpreted programming languages.
  • There is nothing more exciting than learning a new tool or framework and finally conquering the mountain. Now you’re standing tall on the summit, proud of yourself. We all know this feeling when you’re on top of new technology, looking around from the height of the mountain.. Mountain Stupid.
  • The experience of working with Hugo has reinforced my understanding of text-based template engines and web development principles, which is great for future projects. Even for some sorts of pure utilitatian sites like project documentation.

See also: