Comment by 1dom
6 days ago
This is just server side search with more steps, since the index needs to be selectively split and returned, and then search results page generated from the index.
Sorry, I don't mean to come across as disagreeable. You're right, nothing is perfect, and this is obviously a workable and usable solution. My issue is if we analyse it beyond "it looks like it works", it starts to look like a slightly worse solution than what we already had.
Nothing wrong with moving backwards in some direction, as long as we can clearly point to some benefit we're getting elsewhere. My issues with SSGs is most of the benefits they offer end up undermined if you want any interactivity. This is a good example of that, as you end up compromising on build time and page load time compared to an SSR search solution.
> it starts to look like a slightly worse solution than what we already had
You don't see how the server based solution is an order of magnitude more effort to maintain, monitor, optimize, and secure compared to hosting static files? Especially if search is a minor feature of your site, keeping the hosting simple can be a very reasonable tradeoff.
Lots of blogs/sites also do fine with only category and tag filtering (most SSGs have this built in) without text search, and users can use a search engine if they need more.
My point the entire time has been that an SSG is not good for sites that want interactivity.
I agree with you, lots of blogs/sites do fine with just tag/category. Those sites don't have interactivity and so you could SSG them and use free static hosting. We're in agreement on this. But I have explicitly been talking about sites that want interaction. Still - how many personal sites that "do fine without interactivity" are actually "interactivity was too much of a technical/maintenance challenge"?
I completely see how a server based solution is an order of magnitude more effort. We agree on that too. Running any servers efficiently typically has fixed overhead for server infra and processes. Running 3 pieces of server software or even 3 servers is harder than 1, but significantly less than 3x harder.
If you want interactivity, a server is needed. This means you are already maintaining, monitoring, optimising and securing a server solution. Adding SSG processes alongside your existing server solution does not remove any problems relating to servers, because you still have servers. It does add complexity though because you're running servers, and some SSG pipelines. These architectures clash and create more work. Running 2 conflicting architectures can be a lot more more than 2x harder than running 1 architecture.
If you want interactivity and don't want to run a server, then you must use a 3rd party service. This brings its own issues, especially if you have a personal website because you want to own your own stuff.
I feel like you're repeating to me "servers are hard, SSGs are good" - you can't have an SSG without a server, and you definitely can't have interactivity. If you have a server anyways for comments or search, then by using SSGs, you're not removing your need to deal with servers, you're adding an extra picky new thing to your servers. And what complex feature of a personal website does the SSG solve specifically? Generate the text/HTML. Compared to comments and search, generating html from markdown is so painfully easy. SSGs tie our hands behind our backs for the hard interactivity problems to solve the easy text rendering problem.
This seems like a really, really crystal clear point to me. But you, Jeff and Susam have all tried to say that SSGs are generally better, easier, safer or faster. I felt like that from 2016 - 2024. But when you've been pressed, all of you have ended up saying variations on:
- SSGs are great for sites without interactivity (agree, you know and I know though, most personal websites do want some form of interactivity, even just search or comments, and the only reason not to is technical hurdles.)
- Comments and Search are doable with SSGs, but not trivially, or without compromising on things which were traditionally seen as crucial for an open and accessible web (agree, see jeffs comments and search tickets)
- You use SSGs not to solve any particular problem, but just for fun. (agree, that's fine, but if that's your only reason, that's probably a sign there's virtually no technical advantages.)
- The problems you used the SSG for originally have been solved with compute power, storage, connectivity and bandwidth becoming more available over the past decade
I really appreciate and respect your's, Jeff's and Susam's time to respond, I want to be in agreement with you, as you all have the experience and reputation in personal websites. I just can't see it though. I mean this whole HN topic is about Jeff's post "Jeffgeerling.com has been migrated to Hugo" which on the surface looks like a success for the ease of SSGs, but when you probe deeper, it's the text that's been migrated, and comments and search have been disabled.
Why are we here if SSGs are so obviously the easiest, most reliable way to run a personal website? Jeff's site is currently working less than it did before and the fixes are future TODOs are essentially "pick a compromise" (sorry, no offence Jeff - I still think you're great!)
> But you, Jeff and Susam have all tried to say that SSGs are generally better, easier, safer or faster.
I'd just like to clarify that this is not what I was trying to say. In fact, once a website needs server-side programming to support interactivity (comments, subscription, etc.), I don't think SSGs are necessarily better. I think we both agree there to an extent. I think there are tradeoffs.
There is a certain inherent complexity in addressing concerns like performance, portability, etc. that, as waterbed theory suggests, just gets pushed to different places depending on whether we choose an SSG-based solution or non-SSG-based solution. What I have been trying in my other comments is to explain my reasons for why I made the arguably questionable choice to use an SSG for content pages while relying on server side programming for comments and subscriber forms.
I certainly see the appeal of serving the entire site, including both content pages and comment forms, using server side programming. It does simplify the 'architecture' in some ways. However, since I maintain my personal website as a hobby, I need to make the tradeoffs that feel right to me. I realise this is not a very satisfying answer to the question of whether a hybrid solution like mine (SSG plus server side programming) has merits. But I was never trying to argue its merits in the first place.
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Sounds like we agree! There's no perfect solution and I'm not saying SSGs are always the best fit. It really depends on the project and what the people involved value.
For my own solo projects, the ease of hosting for static sites is often such a big win for me that I'm willing to forego some interactivity even though more interactive features would be nice. Knowing that I can upload several static sites and they'll run themselves without any maintenance for years and without potential security problems keeps my life nice and calm. It depends what you want to prioritize.
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