https://lobban.org/posts/2023/01/20/oh-hi/

WordPress vs JAMStack observations

The JAMStack has been evolving since 2016 - and is proving to be a major tech stack / architecture going forward, and is starting to see mainstream adoption, and beyond static content centric sites.

Do-It-Yourself Jamstack Podcast Site

Stackbit’s new Podcaster theme

Stackbit has added a Podcaster theme

When I was looking for a way to build small, maintainable websites as an independent contractor, I found a local Vancouver company, Chloi, that was working on a static site generator called Harp. It was a plus that Kenneth Ormandy of Type Brigade had been involved in the project. (See his contributions on GitHub)

Why Jamstack?

I like the enhanced developer experience in particular, but it also helps that Jamstack sites have all of these benefits.

• Better Performance
• Higher Security
• Cheaper, Easier Scaling
• Better Developer Experience

Jamstack

The legacy version of the Run for Water site designed by Stephen Bau. Featured on Behance.

This version is built with Jamstack, using Harp and DatoCMS.

A similar approach could be used for the Co-Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth.

A Modest Proposal

Since the Buckminster Fuller Institute is using Airtable, it would be possible to follow the CSS-Tricks article on Going Jamstack with React, Serverless, and Airtable.

Run for Water

I used one of these themes for the redesign of the Run for Water site. I transitioned away from Jamstack, because the organization is centred around volunteers, and it was important to empower them to easily make changes to the marketing front end of their organization. The WordPress theme has a beautiful interface for managing content. However, it goes against the philosophy of COPE (Create Once, Publish Everywhere), recommended by Karen McGrane in her presentations on Content in a Zombie Apocalypse.

Symphony

My interest in the subject of Adaptive Content goes back to the days when Symphony was my tool of choice.

Matt Mullenweg’s criticism of Jamstack.

Going Jamstack with React, Serverless, and Airtable

Exploring the possibility of integrating Airtable into the Builders Collective, I started looking into the Airtable API and integration into a Jamstack workflow. A CSS-Tricks article came up in a search.

I agree, Jamstack is brilliant, but time consuming. I decided on using Ghost to take the friction out of writing and publishing.

What might it take to demo a Jamstack approach to connecting Airtable to Hypothesis with serverless functions in Netlify?

go-jamming is a cool looking Webmention sender and receiver, particularly for SSGs. It can be used to service multiple websites as well.

Requires a bit of configuration and build into one's templates, but it looks pretty well documented.

I watched Ru work incredibly hard and diligently over many months to implement what she'd done. I wish I could do half of it, but I can definitely commiserate.

Can't wait to see what you come up with in the coming year with the extra time you'll have gained not only from the switch, but everything else you've learned in the process.