diff --git a/content/rambles/hugo.md b/content/rambles/hugo.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..721e27e --- /dev/null +++ b/content/rambles/hugo.md @@ -0,0 +1,53 @@ +--- +title: "Hugo" +date: "2022-08-18T14:53:00+02:00" +author: "$HUMANOID" +tags: ["hugo", "technology"] +description: "A little ramble about Hugo" +--- + +# Reflection +I've tried to take a look at [Hugo](https://gohugo.io) for a few times before properly diving into it. + +The first time was back when I first decided to look into making a website not-completely by hand. +I had hacked a few previous iterations of this site together and was happy with the design. +The next step was to write some blobs of text for people to read besides the random antics that can be found in the side bar. + +A few problems arose here. +For one, writing directly in HTML is a pain. +So I decided to write in markdown and convert that to HTML using [Pandoc](https://pandoc.org). +From there, I still had to index every page completely by hand. +The prospect of this annoyed me quite a bit, so I decided to take a cursory glance at Hugo. + +The quick start guide showed how to take a pre-existing theme, a bunch of markdown files and turn that into website. +Never having been one to use other people's work as-is, I quickly gave up when I saw the structure of the themes and couldn't be bothered to give it a proper shot. +This also gave me the impression of it being a Wordpress-esque environment that works great as long as you stick within the standards. + +A bit later I found out that Pandoc supports templates. +So I tried my hand at hacking a site generator together based on a Makefile and Pandoc. +This worked... somewhat. +But I deemed it more trouble than it was worth and never got very far with it. + +A few weeks ago, I came across someone mentioning Hugo again and how it was really great. +I decided to give it another shot. +This time really diving into the structure of the themes and it clicked. +A thing that probably helped this time around was that it very quickly became clear to me that the features I had been half arsedly implementing in my Makefile were standard features for Hugo. +Another thing that undoubtedly helped being that the philosophy and syntax of Pandoc's more advanced features are quite similar to Hugo's. + +# Disservice to Hugo + +One big thing I bump into with Hugo is the fact that most Hugo websites I come across take one template and _maybe_ change the colorscheme. +I feel this is a great disservice to the potential that Hugo has to offer in terms of flexibility. +Yes, you _can_ have it similar to Wordpress, but you don't _have to_. +I was scared off because I assumed would have to use some existing template or get my CSS to work within a Hugo context. +The process of which, I assumed, would be mostly having beat Hugo into submission before it would display the things I wanted in the way I wanted. + +The beauty of Hugo and ultimately the reason this is now a Hugo site, is it's flexibility. +You wouldn't be able to tell this is a Hugo site if you don't dig through the metadata fields in the `` tag. +And I guess that is also kind of the problem with it. +Most people visibly using Hugo take some standard template proudly proclaiming that the page we're presently looking at is generated using it. + +And the people who want to use Hugo but don't care for the pre-existing themes, don't care to proudly shout to the world that their site is made with it. +This is why I got the impressions of Hugo that I did. + +In that sense, I'm part of the problem in not showing that Hugo can do pretty much anything you can think of in the realm of static, somewhat blog oriented websites.