Static site generators provide a way to build a website that has modern functionality—blogging, RSS, templating, markdown—without the overhead of a database. While certain features, such as comment sections, are difficult to implement on a static site, static sites have many advantages: they are more maintainable, simpler to understand and modify, are difficult to hack, and are more archivable and sustainable. They also fit neatly into a content management workflow that includes the command line, a text editor, Git, and markdown.
In this session, we will use Jekyll, a popular static site generator written in the Ruby programming language, to build and modify a version of our Digital Research Institute website. In doing so, we'll learn about templates, including layouts and includes, and also how to host your static site on GitHub Pages.