11ty Is Cool

11ty Mascot
11ty mascot

Eleventy is a static site generator. It allows websites to be rendered at build time. This differentiates it from:

So why is that special? Isn't Wordpress a static site generator?

Well, most static site generators try to make your life harder - eleventy doesn't. It's also a gateway into what else can be done "statically", and indirectly teaches you about what can be done on the web.

11ty (Eleventy)

What is special about 11ty? At it's core it doesn't get in the way of writing HTML, CSS and Javascript. It allows some templating, but also mandatory features for static sites, like Internationalization (i18n), and many other standard, boring features.

For me, 11ty solves a very simple problem. I want to write websites, with behavior ranging from true "static sites", and also powerful mobile-first and offline-first web apps.

The static sites, are great for having an online "presence" and "hub", aided by social media where we can publically share our interests, and work, while having a website people can visit that's a more dense representation of who we are or what we offer. Static sites also solve the problem of serving content for business, hence content management systems (CMS).

And the mobile web apps allow for some platform stability, avoidng issues like Apple and Android ecosystems entirely. Basically, writing an app once, and having it run on all devices.

I'll be sharing more and more as I explore the great ecosystem that Zach and others have built, and adjacent tools that assist in the Jamstack approach.

Static is the way

"Static sites" are cool, because they're just files. They are also performant without optimization, and putting them on a server is very easy. 11ty, and therefore, being skilled in building static sites, means I'm able to bypass a whole load of complexity in web UIs, that people who do "frontend" for a living have to deal with every day.