This document discusses moving from a dynamic WordPress workflow to static site generation. It outlines some of the issues with WordPress like frequent outages and vulnerable installations. It then proposes reengineering WordPress as a static site generator to avoid running PHP on the server. Some key aspects of static site generators are discussed like asset pipelines, content handling, metadata, filtering and sorting capabilities. Finally, it provides questions to consider when evaluating different static site generators.

1. Dynamic to Static
Onboarding to static site generation from a dynamic workflow
@biilmann
www.netlify.com

3. From Wordpress
to Static

4. What does Wordpress
Do?

5. Powers 24% of the Internet
Not Wordpress
76%
Wordpress
24%

6. Blows up all the time!
Vulnerable Installs
79%
Secure Installs
21%

7. When you upgrade a plugin

8. wp-admin
wp-content
PHP crap…
Wordpress

9. WP-admin

10. WP-Includes

11. PHP Crap

12. A Static Approach
What if we reengineered Wordpress as a Static Site
Generator?

13. What is Static?
It’s not about:
Dynamic content vs static brochure
Database vs Flat Files
Writing HTML by hand

14. What is Static?
No dynamic programming on the server
A Caching Contract

15. Static Wordpress: WP-admin

16. Static Wordpress: WP-Includes

17. Static Wordpress: PHP Crap

18. Replacing The PHP
Crap :)
Picking a static site generator

19. Typical Static Site
Generator Flow
Lets look at netlify.com - currently a Jekyll based site

20. netlify.com admin

21. netlify.com “includes”

22. netlify.com the whole flow
netlify CDN

23. Picking Your Static
Site Generator
What you should look for…

25. The Modern Static Site Generator
Templating
Asset Pipeline
Content
Metadata
Filtering & Sorting
Plugins

26. Mapping out the STG
landscape
Build Tools Build Tools/STG Full Fledged STG Specialized STG

27. What to look for: Asset Pipeline
Sass/CoffeeScript/Babel.js/Less/Stylus/etc,etc,etc
Composable? Extensible? vs Simple? No configuration?
Bower? NPM?

28. What to look for: Content
Typically Markdown
ReStructuredText
External APIs? Contentful, Prismic, Google Docs

29. What to look for: Metadata
Frontmatter?
YAML? JSON? TOML?
Separate Data Document

30. What to look for: Filter & Sort
Code in templates?
Built-in Sort and Filter features?
Easy helper methods?

31. What to look for: Plugins
Can you write plugins?
Plugin ecosystem?
What’s possible with a plugin?
Plugin Hooks?

32. Q/A
What else do you want from a static site generator?

33. Thank You!
mathias@netlify.com
@biilmann
www.netlify.com