I switched to FastMail about 6 months ago, and I like it. I actually like FastMail’s webapp more than Gmail’s. There aren’t any features from Gmail that I miss, and FastMail offers a very easy option to migrate your emails from Gmail.
Writing your own can be a good way to learn a new language as well as a good introduction to html/css if you’re new to it. Also, if you write it yourself (again, for _simple_ use cases), it’ll do exactly what you need and no more. Evidently, a lot of people have found reasons to write their own, including the author of this one - hence the proliferation of simple static site generators.
Yes, indeed. My original thought was more along the lines of why there are so many generators published to solve the same problem when it’s easy to create your own custom generator as needed. Add one more step - publish your custom generator online in case it’s useful for others - and now you see the proliferation. Makes perfect sense now :)
Yeah, you’re right - I forgot about Dreamweaver and similar tools. I do think that adding wysiwyg UIs to a generator puts it in a slightly different class than the type of generator posted here, but your point is a good one. Adding a UI to a simple generator would make it much easier for non-technical people to use.
It makes sense that the static site generators with lots of bells an whistles are harder to get right, especially if they’re trying to build an ecosystem with plugins and themes where others can contribute. I’m considering the _simple_ generators like the one posted here, though. My original thought/question was why not just write your own if you have a simple use case? There have been some good answers here such as no programming knowledge, lack of experience with html/css, or wanting to spend your time on other projects.
Hi, thanks, that all makes sense. I was asking why there are so many static site generators and why you wouldn’t just create a custom static site generator yourself, not why you would use one. I use one myself. Based on some of the other replies, I can see that there are use cases for not creating your own - when you aren’t a programmer, or when you don’t know or care to learn html and css, or when an existing generator already does all that you need.
It looks nice, but I guess I still[1] don’t understand the proliferation of simple static site generators. It’s pretty easy (and fun!) to build your own that works exactly as you want it to. And I don’t think a static site generator is suitable for non-technical users. Is there an in-between type of user technical enough to use a static site generator but not able to write their own? Or maybe the proliferation is only because they are both easy and fun to create?
Edit: I didn’t intend for this to sound negative for the creator. Even if it’s just for fun and the chance someone else might find it useful, that’s enough of a reason to build it for me.
I'm using vim with text files already, and Pandoc for converting markdown into other formats as needed. Hard to imagine paying $30 for a worse editing experience that only works on Mac. Maybe I'm not representative of the target market?
Hmm, that’s odd. In my experience, FastMail’s web app is much faster than Gmail. I also tend to like that the FastMail web app is simple in comparison to Gmail - fewer things to slow it down or break, and few things for me to ignore :)
"It's worth noting that in my testing, GNOME uses slightly more RAM and CPU than Unity on the same hardware doing the same things. The increase is only about 10 percent more on the RAM, and, let's face it, neither of them are lightweight desktops. If you want something light, try i3."
Best advice in the article ;) I did try i3 and like it a lot. I have it running on a Chromebook now as my main machine.
I just tried setting up a Glowstone server on a Linode instance. It was a very quick experience. However, I ended up switching to the official Minecraft server jar provided by Mojang when I realized that Glowstone doesn't support the "allow-flight" option for flying in creative mode :/
I switched from LastPass to KeePassXC, and I like that I don't have a browser extension anymore. It seems like many of the security vulnerabilities discovered in LastPass were in the browser extension. Plus, the stand-alone app is nice.
I'm surprised the author didn't mention vim's sessions feature. The ability to close the editor/IDE and pick up right where you left off can save a lot of time when working with multiple large projects. It's easy enough to use on its own, but I have a small wrapper plugin that adds a few features for ease of use: https://github.com/bgrohman/vim-bg-sessions.
"NERDTree satisfies this need of mine, replacing vim’s built-in netrw file navigator with a nicer-looking, less buggy, more fully featured alternative."
Wait, what's wrong with the built-in netrw? I actually started with NERDTree before I knew netrw existed. After discovering netrw, I switched to it instead. I think it looks just fine and prefer it to the more complex NERDTree.
It's a bit underpowered, but it works just fine for my personal use which includes some light coding. It would be way underpowered to use for my day job in any capacity other than ssh-ing into other machines. Then again, it is one of the cheapest Chromebooks available at $169, so you get what you pay for :)
A custom bookmark service for managing my bookmarks across multiple browsers with Node and LetsEncrypt. Planning to add end to end encryption at some point. I don’t have the code hosted anywhere yet.