Sculpin – PHP Static Site Generator | Hacker News Reader

Sculpin – PHP Static Site Generator

sculpin.io

Freelancer Tip: This is a really good option for that professional who just wants a business card site & thinks they need WP so they can "update the content" on their $10,000+ professional design.

Explain they are a doctor/lawyer/trader/etc & they don't want to spend hours getting their site just right & keeping it updated & hacked-free. Put them on a monthly retainer for $X and now you're building up repeat business.

WP is over-used in our industry and I like to see people looking at other options & explaining these to non-tech clients.

I can get behind this. Hosting a WordPress is too inefficient for a website with just a /index /about and /contact. Most businesses go without updating their websites for months/years, if we find a way to sell static websites to clients that would be a step forward.

Unfortunately, in the mind of the client static=easy=worth less

This is just a sales problem though - you don't sell a "static website" you sell the development, management and hosting of their site and that's where you build your margin.

If you need some content management and like Sculpin then check out Concrete 5, they're both based on Twig and Symfony components, but Concrete 5 has the CMS features you might expect a customer to ask for.

Also worth mention is Zoltonic which is an Erlang thing (iirc it also works with Elixir). I've found it pretty easy to get set up with my very baisc understanding of Erlang.

Ever tried Bolt CMS? I'm looking for a lightweight one right now and will check out Concrete 5.

So I haven't done web development since the early 2000's when I transitioned into becoming a technical PM and recruiter full time, nothing more than tweaking something in my blog theme (changing a font or a link color). Therefore, I am way behind the times.

Here's my genuine question: it seems like the term 'static site' means something different from my understanding of it in the 00's-a plain HTML page with no server side processing (PHP, ASP, Coldfusion, etc). Is this correct? What exactly are these static sites and why does one need to be "generated" versus crafting your own markup? Time and efficiency or is there more under the hood than I understand?

Thanks!

Static site generators are used to speed up the process of development in terms of being able to code it as you would a dynamic site, but "compiling" down to a production-ready static site with minified code. A lot of them allow you to do things like including partials, string interpolation, using middleware and pre-processors, etc.

When you say 'minified' in regards to code, what does that mean exactly? More concise code that simply does the same thing as larger chunks of markup?

Yes. E.g. removing unnecessary newlines/spaces, refactoring JavaScript to short variable names, ... to reduce the file sizes.

if you write html files individually, you'll have to update the navigation of each file when you add a new page. Same issue with categories, tags etc. SSGs just make it a bit easier to manage that stuff, and provide a framework to add other functions - markdown support, rss, sitemaps etc

if you write html files individually, you'll have to update the navigation of each file when you add a new page

I remember this being a MASSIVE pain. Managing that is a huge benefit. Thanks for the explanation!

It's also cool because you can prototype on a static site and think about the design like it is dynamic (eg, not doing a cut and paste of page layout). Then the migration to a proper framework like Symfony, or Silex is much simpler as you can always move the templates over (but you'll still need some tweaking).

A static site still designates a site with no server-side processing, just serving of (static) content. As for it being plain HTML, no, it can be full of JS, videos, whatever, it's still static.

I do remember a time when the expression "dynamic HTML" was popular to designate HTML+JS. Therefore, "static" may have been used in contrast to "dynamic" to designate plain HTML pages indeed. This is not the case now.

This makes sense, helping me get over the syntax of 'static' vs 'dynamic' in my mind thanks!

Static sites can be dynamically generated ;)

Time and efficiency is the main point. Take a blog: if you write it entirely by hand and add an article, you now have to:

* include it in the main page

* update the RSS feed

* include it in all the category/tag listings

* if you have prev/next article links, you have to add it to the last article

* included images need to be prepared for web

* if you show a code example, you might want to syntax-highlight it

If you want to change the design, you have to touch all pages (or do search/replace and hope that it doesn't mess anything up)

...

Or you could have a program that you feed text + raw images for your articles and that automatically generates all the necessary files/changes old ones accordingly, based on this input and templates.

The result then can be served by web server that doesn't speak any server-side language.

Static site generators don't have server side processing.

They are best when building landing pages, corporate sites, or simple blogs. It's cleaner, lighter and more maintainable than solutions like wordpress, drupal or most cms

For software that embeds Composer, it's a little odd that it's "quick start guide" and general installation instructions don't include a typical Composer-based installation option, or mention Composer usage at all, instead seemingly opting for quite a non-standard "sculpin.json/sculpin.lock"-based approach.

It does - https://sculpin.io/getstarted/

The `curl -O https://download.sculpin.io/sculpin.phar` is what you are looking for - call that phar file instead of calling the composer.phar. That's where composer is "embedded"

No that's what I mean. Assuming you have Composer installed, and are accustomed to a Composer-centric workflow, running a curl command and then a separate phar file (albeit one containing Composer) is an unusual break from that.

I'm guessing the embedded Composer may also ignore any locally-set Composer configuration on the dev's own copy of Composer.

One assumes the Sculpin devs do like/appreciate Composer's functionality, since they embed it, but they've opted not to advocate direct use of its interface at all.

I don't mean to be overly critical, it just struck me as somewhat bizarre.

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