by Law Aritao

Reflections on Why

I want to explore why I am doing this blog and why I consider Hugo and Github pages a great choice.

Why Hugo and Github Pages?

In the past twelve months, I explored Wordpress, Ghost, Wix, Wordpress/Ghost on various platforms: Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Azure, Linode, Digital Ocean, and Vultr. I also tried creating a static site and hosting it on Amazon Amplify.

I sampled these solutions and combinations haphazardly - the way you might look through a pile of books and read a few pages until a particular narrative just calls out to you. In hindsight, I was looking for a tool I felt a connection to.

Wordpress, A Behemoth that I Like But Don’t Want to Use

Wordpress was a strange thing to use. Its default theme started out blazing fast, and everything felt snappy until I customized it. In fairness to Wordpress, I was part of the problem. I will use a plugin for everything, just because. At one point, I had an LMS plugin, membership plugin, PWA plugin, site building plugin, flipbook plugin, among others. I spent so much time customizing the site that I had little time to create content

Ghost- a lean machine that holds it’s own. Seriously beautiful.

Ghost was the opposite of Wordpress for me - there was no need for plugins. It had everything built in, almost. It supported Mardown and HTML in a post. Wow. For features I wanted, like using code for a Progressive Web App, I could tweak the theme, add a few files, do a code injection, and the work was done. Nice.

After learning Ghost, I concluded it would be great for some of my writing pursuits, but I still felt like exploring other ways to publish. For that, I looked to the cloud(s).

Cloud Platforms - A Wonderful Place to Get Lost In

I am a Gigantic Fan of cloud services like GCP, AWS, Azure, and Vultr. They had an incredible array of options and in the end were overpowered for a personal blog or site. They are great for business, or for tinkering and learning. My cloud journey did lead to a project using Wordpress as a containerized solution. That’s a fun thing I’m still working on.

Hugo and Github Pages - Flexible, Fun, Life-giving

When I discovered Hugo and Github Pages, I found something truly special. I know Hugo is not the only static site generator, and I know there are many other ways to host content.

The differentiating factor for me was the blend of flexibility, aesthetics, and scrappiness I felt from the Hugo + Github Pages combination. Hugo is highly customizable, but it also allows me to fire up a themed site quickly. It has nice documentation on an accessible site. And, it’s fast. Blazing fast. Plus, it uses Markdown. Beautiful, wonderful, Markdown.

Github Pages - a window into a community.

I’m just getting started with Github and Github pages, but I already love the platform, and I love that Github Actions allows us to push new content out through a simple workflow. Github might be a giant community, but it somehow feels small at the same time. This makes me happy about using it.

The other, deeper why.

For the actual why behind this blog, it is that creating content, especially through writing and publishing, is one of the most life-giving activities I can do. It is a comfort in the middle of this harsh and devastating pandemic. I am glad I can do that on a platform built on the ideas of shared work and mutual support.

Cheers, and see you on the next post.