content: ssg-that-packs-a-punch

content/posts/ssg-that-packs-a-punch/index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,78 @@
+---
+title: SSG that packs a punch
+date: 2024-05-02T21:17:43Z
+desc: >
+    Let's create a yet another SSG from scratch, because that's just
+    what this world needs!
+---
+
+Long story short, I decided to write my own static site generator in Rust. The
+language choice is purely pragmatic and at first I considered using Haskell,
+but alas the Rust ecosystem seems better suited for this task. Rust is not only
+a very ergonomic and efficient language, but also has lots of high quality
+packages to choose from.
+
+
+## The why
+
+I used many different SSGs made by other people, but over the years I realized
+that they simply can't cut it for me. I used simple generators like Hugo, which
+offer little to no support for JavaScript. Eventually I ended up using Astro,
+which treats JavaScript as a first class citizen.
+
+The thing I didn't like the most about Hugo, was that it used some strange,
+clumsy templating language, which was quite annoying to use, but I enjoyed the
+fact that nearly everything was built in, and the generation speed was fast.
+When it comes to Astro, I enjoyed the fact that in templates you could write
+TypeScript, as well the great flexibility with which you could arrange the
+structure of the website. However, the JavaScript ecosystem is a mess, so using
+that was not that pleasant overall.
+
+Astro was closer to what I wanted, but not quite there.
+
+With time, I realized that what I truly need is the flexibility of Astro,
+coupled with a different language. Ideally a fun one like Haskell or Rust.
+
+I started looking around and came across a couple of [blog
+posts](https://arne.me/blog/write-your-own-ssg) detailing how people made the
+move to their custom generator. This was the inspiration I needed.
+
+I thought that even if it ends up quite bad in the end, at least I'll learn
+*something*. And it would be a good chance to learn more Rust, so that's a win
+right there. With Haskell it would be an ever bigger win, but hey, can't have
+everything in life.
+
+
+## The what
+
+When trying to write a computer program it's a good idea to think about what it
+should ideally be able to do. We should at least know the sketch of the
+requirements before we start, so that we know if we are getting any closer to
+the goal as we keep writing it.
+
+When it comes to my generator I think I would like for it to have these
+qualities:
+- The generator must be *simple* and *extensible*
+- HTML shouldn't be generated using some bespoke templating language, I should
+have the full ecosystem at my disposal.
+- Ideally I should not be limited to Markdown, I should be able to use
+different file text formats as needed, e.g. Djot, AsciiDoc.
+- Code snippets should be highlighted using Tree-sitter.
+- Math should be pre-rendered via MathML without any client-side JavaScript.
+- There should be a way to render different pages differently, some collections
+of Markdown files should output different looking pages.
+- I should be able to generate HTML pages that don't have any original source
+files related to them, think dynamically generated lists of pages, tags.
+
+With these requirements in mind I decided to go with Rust, because Rust has
+lots of up-to-date parsers that can be used while building a generator. On top
+of that I can use Tree-sitter without any need for complicated FFI or using
+outdated libraries in other ecosystems.
+
+When moving to a non-JavaScript backend for building SSG some issues related to
+JavaScript inevitably start to crop up. There is some friction with using tools
+like ESBuild, but I feel like the benefits far outweigh the challenges in the
+end.
+
+
+## The how