A presentation at PHPSW Lightning Talks in in Bristol, UK by Drew McLellan
STATIC SITE GENERATORS, PHP & THE CUBAN REVOLUTION PHP SOUTHWEST
STATIC SITE GENERATORS, PHP & THE CUBAN REVOLUTION PHP SOUTHWEST
WHAT IS A STATIC SITE GENERATOR?
STATIC SITE GENERATORS AND PHP WHAT IS A STATIC SITE GENERATOR? ▸ A script or application that runs offline to combine content and templates into a set of finalised, static web pages. ▸ Content is commonly stored in Markdown files under source control. ▸ Often use an established templating library (Twig, Handlebars, Liquid etc) ▸ Deployable output requires no execution or interpreting by the web server.
WHAT ARE STATIC SITES GOOD FOR?
ANY SITE THAT DOESN'T NEED DYNAMIC CONTENT. James Titcumb @asgrim WHAT ARE STATIC SITES GOOD FOR?
I’M A FAN OF THEM WHERE A SITE CONTENT CHANGES RARELY (QUARTERLY / ANNUALLY PERHAPS)… BROCHUREWARE TYPE SITES. Steve Kirtley @stevekirtley WHAT ARE STATIC SITES GOOD FOR?
THE SECURITY ASPECT IS A BIG PLUS FOR ME. WITH NO SERVER-SIDE SCRIPTING LANGUAGE INVOLVED THE ATTACK SURFACE DROPS THROUGH THE FLOOR. Nev Stokes @nevstokes WHAT ARE STATIC SITES GOOD FOR?
THEY'RE HANDY WHEN YOU WANT THE HOSTING SETUP TO BE AS MINIMAL AS POSSIBLE (FROM GITHUB PAGES, OR AN S3 BUCKET, FOR INSTANCE). Tom Hazledine @thomashazledine WHAT ARE STATIC SITES GOOD FOR?
[FOR OUR PROJECT WE WERE] ALSO THINKING ABOUT LONGEVITY. HTML, CSS, JAVASCRIPT FOREVER! Sally Lait @sallylait WHAT ARE STATIC SITES GOOD FOR?
STATIC SITE GENERATORS AND PHP ADVANTAGES OF STATIC SITES ▸ Minimal and inexpensive hosting requirements ▸ Introduces no additional attack surfaces ▸ Fast - low user wait times, so better UX ▸ Simple and therefore long-lasting
WHAT ABOUT, YOU KNOW, ACTUAL FUNCTIONALITY?
STATIC SITE GENERATORS AND PHP FUNCTIONAL THINGS THAT REAL WEBSITES ACTUALLY HAVE ▸ Contact forms ▸ Content search ▸ Commenting ▸ Authentication ▸ A/B, multivariate, bucket testing
“SERVERLESS” (SOMEONE ELSE’S SERVER)
JAVASCRIPT APIS MISPLACED SENSE OF NOSTALGIA
STATIC SITE GENERATORS AND PHP SERVERLESS YOUR HTML SITE THE CLOUD
STATIC SITE GENERATORS AND PHP THE 1990S YOUR HTML SITE CGI-BIN
STATIC SITE GENERATORS AND PHP ‘SERVERLESS’ THINGS WE ALREADY DO ▸ Analytics ▸ Mailing list sign-ups ▸ Social interactions, like, share etc ▸ Payment gateway integration (e.g. Stripe.js)
SERVERLESS ARCHITECTURE DANCES TO THE MELODY INSTEAD OF THE BEAT. @drewm STATIC SITE GENERATORS AND PHP
STATIC SITE GENERATORS AND PHP ADVANTAGES OF STATIC SITES ▸ Minimal and inexpensive hosting requirements ▸ Introduces no additional attack surfaces ▸ Fast - low user wait times, so better UX ▸ Simple and therefore long-lasting
STATIC SITE GENERATORS AND PHP ADVANTAGES OF STATIC SITES ▸ Minimal and inexpensive hosting requirements Proprietary platform and/or third-party APIs (+ cost) ▸ Introduces no additional attack surfaces Multiple additional attack surfaces, out of your control ▸ Fast - low user wait times, so better UX Slow pages chock full of JavaScript ▸ Simple and therefore long-lasting Brittle with multiple potential points of failure
KNOW WHAT YOU’RE GETTING INTO.
STATIC SITE GENERATORS AND PHP STATIC SITES ARE GREAT ▸ Be conscious of when you need a genuinely static site ▸ Keep weighing the pros & cons ▸ It’s really easy to fixate on the pros and end up in Con City
HOW CAN I DO THIS IN THE PHP?
SCULPIN sculpin.io Symfony-based Twig templates Composer install
JIGSAW jigsaw.tighten.co Laravel-based Blade templates Composer install
COUSCOUS couscous.io Designed for documentation sites Twig templates Composer install
IN CONCLUSION
STATIC SITE GENERATORS AND PHP IN CONCLUSION ▸ Static sites are good ▸ Serverless is cgi-bin for hipsters ▸ SSGs for PHP are a thing ▸ I’ve been @drewm ▸ You’ve been lovely, thanks!
Everyone's talking about static site generators these days, but are they craycray or is there something to this? What are SSGs good for, what are they bad for, and how can we use them as part of our PHP toolset?
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