I Rebuilt the Website Again

2025-03-14

I enjoy tinkering. That much is evident. This little blog is a wonderfully low stakes project to explore and learn.

I’ve continued to grow tired of the bloated Internet and heavy websites. JavaScript is not a blight on the web, but it has become overused for flashy client-side stuff. UX is worsened by applications that send you a shell of the page on initial request then rely on a bunch of additional requests to populate the page with content. Build the page quickly on the server (there’s even a specific term this – “server-side rendering” – like it’s uncommon now?), then send that to the requester in a single response. This is starting to feel like a rant, so I’ll stop. Ultimately I appreciate when websites stay lean, getting rid of the fluff, so that their purpose is clear and they render quickly.

With that context in mind, understand my delight upon discovering a static site generator called wruby that is barebones and to the point, on purpose. I thought Jekyll was small, but wruby makes Jekyll feel like an enormous leviathan. wruby uses Ruby and Markdown with a sprinkling of CSS, and that’s it. The application is simple enough that you can wrap your head around it, then make modifications as desired.

I haven’t changed much of the wruby application (yet), but I introduced different styling from mono/color. Like most projects, I imagine this one will continue to warp and change over time.

The Minimal Web is great. You should give it a try. I guarantee you’ll grow to appreciate it.