Comment by seanwilson
6 days ago
> They make the web worse for the world by tempting the developer to take the easier, less interactive route than what would have been taken in the pre-SSG world.
If I didn't have the static site option though, I might not host a project at all because I don't want to have to deal with the maintenance burden. I haven't kept up but it would be nice if there were more options between a no-maintenance static site hosting, and a high-maintenance dynamic site.
Would be amazing if the web/browsers had standardized ways by now of easily adding common website features like authentication, search, comments, votes, and saving user data (via bring your own storage) that didn't require everyone to host and maintain a custom stack. Email is a solved problem that you don't have to host yourself for example, why is it still such an effort for the other common website features?
> I haven't kept up but it would be nice if there were more options between a no-maintenance static site hosting, and a high-maintenance dynamic site.
This is essentially my position in fewer and less argumentative words, including the "I haven't kept up bit", really:)
Your last paragraph was also really thought provoking. I'm torn on that though. I agree it's an almost off-putting amount of time for anyone who wants a personal website to reinvent the wheel when the client browser could help.
The main issue with that for me is that browsers require organisations to build and maintain, so I think we should always be careful about removing responsibilities from website creators and giving it over to browsers.
I guess the SSG and the browser points are both freedom vs convenience type tradeoffs where everyone has their own personal preference. It's all Web stuff though, so we should probably try keep it all open, flexible and resilient IMO.