I was wondering why there are so many websites using wordpress, even though they have no dynamic content.
Couldn't they well be just static HTML?

Today I learned why.
https://elementor.com/

I have so mixed feelings about this.

On one hand, how dare someone make websites for others without even knowing HTML and CSS.
(^ that's my elitism talking)

OTOH, it's cool that people can make websites that look like they want without needing to learn the technical details.

But then they don't understand how it works internally. They don't understand to the point where they may not even know why Wordpress is an overkill and liability.

Shouldn't someone make a drag&drop static generator?

Ok, so there are 2 problems with this thing:

1. Use of Wordpress. This means
a) code running at each page view (vulns anyone?)
b) dependencies (PHP, MySQL)
and none of that is necessary for the features the resulting website has.

2. People using tools they don't understand, and then making and selling code they don't undestand.

@Wolf480pl re 1.: c). performance issues (good luck serving more than a few dozen impressions per second without some heavy caching).

Yeah, the fact that dynamic CMSes are used for this kind of stuff boggles the mind.

One part of the problem, though, is that I have not seen a static site generator that can be used and managed day to day by end users.

@rysiek @Wolf480pl I see this every single day dealing with Drupal websites.

It's made worse by shockingly horrible code in some^Wmost modules.

@pertho @Wolf480pl should we create a buzzword for static site hosting? I mean, this seems a good way to push people to use stuff (for better or worse). ;)

@rysiek @pertho
sure, how about "static web" ?

Eh, I suck at this :(

@rysiek @pertho

Web 5.0
Lightning Web (because it's lightning fast)
Lightweight Web

Web Switch (now you can host your website at home, on the walk with a dog, or on the roof with your friends)

ok, I suck even more.

@Wolf480pl @rysiek @pertho JAM stack (https://jamstack.org/) seems to be a back-to-the-roots attempt for dynamic web pages.

There are many static side generators (i. e. https://gohugo.io/) but I'm not aware of any drag & drop solutions

@saxnot @rysiek @pertho
>JAM stack

I don't like the JS part.
I know there are pages which will need some dynamic features, and where JS may be the right solution.
But if you phrase it the way they did, I'm afraid that webdevs will misinterpret it and to all the layout with JS, like they're used to.

Also, there are two reasons why generating dynamic stuff server-side is in many cases better than doing it client-side:
- lower resource requirements on the client side
- better accessibility

@Wolf480pl @rysiek @pertho uh... nobody talked about generating the JS.
JAM is just JS calling into API. Without all this framework garbage.

I'm not qualified to compare JAM-solution against other JS solutions

@saxnot @rysiek @pertho
AFAIK you can use a JS framework w/o generating JS. You just include the library and call its functions, which you can use to generate HTML on the client side.

Of course that'd be against the M part of JAM, but who's gonna read past the A part?

@Wolf480pl @rysiek @pertho maybe we should talk about static site generators instead

https://www.staticgen.com/

@saxnot @rysiek @pertho
maybe we should talk about static site generators that are usable and themable by graphics designers with no background in HTML or CSS.

@saxnot @rysiek @pertho
Note that Elementor is not a CMS on its own, but wraps around Wordpress to allow WYSIWYG theming.

If static site generators are the next CMSes, shouldn't we come up with a WYSIWYG that wraps around an existing static generator or two?

@Wolf480pl @saxnot @rysiek @pertho I use jekyll for my personal blog, but I wouldn't be able to use it for a client -- clients expect to be able to edit their content, and I can't get them to learn markdown let alone HTML or to run the build script to regenerate the site.

@lordbowlich @Wolf480pl @rysiek @pertho dang, jekyll seems to be awesome.

Well, their website itself looks, meh. But the theme can be changed and I don't need more than "just" content distribution across this "internet".

@saxnot @lordbowlich @Wolf480pl @pertho we're using Jekyll (for example for https://www.occrp.org/en/panamapapers/ ), but it is not something as easy to use by non-techies as Wordpress (once set-up).

And I refuse to accept that it's impossible to create a static site generator that would be as easy to use.