static sites

JAMstack sites are often seen as being static. A more accurate mental model for them would be that they are sites which have the ability to be hosted statically. The difference might seem semantic, but thanks to the rise of many tools and services which simplify running a build and deploying to static hosting infrastructure, such sites can feel much fresher and dynamic than you might imagine, while still capable of being served from static hosting infrastructure, with all the benefits that brings.

A feature often used as an example of why a site cannot be hosted statically is comments. A comments engine needs to handle submissions, allow for moderation, and is by its very nature, "dynamic".

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A huge high-five and welcome to Netlify for the sponsorship this week.

If you haven't heard of Netlify, the big thing you should know is that it's web hosting, but more than that. It's web hosting with the developer workflow squarely at heart. You can spin up a site on Netlify in literally seconds. One way is through their robust CLI. Another way, that I find very comfortable (and just did the other day), is to log into the Netlify web interface, create a new site, and connect a Git repo to it. Plus I can give it a command that will run my site's build process when I push to master. Now anything I push up goes live on my website, which is HTTPS and on a CDN. Uh, wow. Of course, I can also point a custom domain name at Netlify and now we're cooking with gas.

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