#QuickCuppa - Thoughts on GatsbyJS, the React-based SSG framework

UIT 5: In this week's episode I share my thoughts on the use of GatsbyJS and whether I feel it's a viable static site generator framework.

What are static sites?
Static sites have been around for a very long time, and realistically are the original website: simply HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. They are not rendered during runtime; there is no server-side code, no database, etc.

What’s a static site generator?
It’s a tool that generates static sites whenever you decide to run a build on your code base.

Contrast this to typical javascript frameworks and libraries, these usually generate HTML content on the client side during runtime.
How is this different from server-side rendering? The primary difference is that there is no server-side code. So, unlike a framework such as Django, Gatsby does not render anything on the server when a request is made. Everything is generated at the build time of the application.
A few benefits of a static site are: speed, the simplest infrastructure, search engine optimization, and security.

GatsbyJS
“Gatsby is a free and open source framework based on React that helps developers build blazing fast websites and apps”

• Built on top of ReactJS
• GraphQL for data
• Uses any source for content; I use MDX (JSX in Markdown)

Pros

• Love React, writing components is a joy.
• Because it’s built on ReactJS has access to a huge ecosystem of packages.
• ...

Full show notes available at https://uitherapy.fm/episodes/5/

Links

• Free Stickers: https://uitherapy.fm/journal/free-stickers/ 
• GatsbyJS: https://www.gatsbyjs.org/ 
• GraphQL: https://graphql.org/ 
• Static web page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_web_page 
• JSX: https://reactjs.org/docs/introducing-jsx.html
• MDX: https://mdxjs.com/
• hopking.io: https://hopking.io/
• Django: https://www.djangoproject.com/ 
• Wagtail CMS: https://wagtail.io/ 
• Django-graphene: https://docs.graphene-python.org/projects/django/en/latest/ 

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