Podcast Summary
Wes Bos updates his website using modern technologies: Wes Bos revamped his website using modern technologies like JavaScript, CSS, and Node modules to improve performance and prevent server crashes.
Wes Bos, a developer from Denver, Colorado, recently updated his website after a long hiatus, and during the process, he shared insights into his choices and experiences. His website, located at wesboss.com, has been his online home since 2004, and despite multiple redesigns, he had been using WordPress with Advanced Custom Fields, Less for styling, and jQuery for custom JavaScript. However, the website became slow, and linking it in emails to his large email list led to server crashes due to Bluehost's auto-scaling feature. To address these issues, Wes opted for a new website built with modern technologies like JavaScript, CSS, and Node modules. He also shared his preference for the workflow and soft skills he learned during the process. The episode was sponsored by Sentry, an error handling and exception tracking tool, which Wes highly recommended for efficient bug tracking.
Moving from CMS to Static Site Generation with Gatsby.js: The speaker chose Gatsby for its static site generation capabilities, React integration, and open-source community, highlighting the benefits of dynamic content and API hosting.
The speaker decided to move his content from a traditional CMS like WordPress to a static site generated using Gatsby.js, and make it open-source for the community to edit and improve. He chose Gatsby because it generates HTML beforehand but also allows React to load for a more dynamic user experience. The speaker also discussed the benefits of static site generation versus server-side rendering, and how Gatsby allows for dynamic content but requires hosting an API outside of the platform. He mentioned the upcoming feature of hosted GraphQL for Gatsby sites, which will allow for data to be refreshed from the API and reduce the need for external hosting. Overall, the speaker's experience shows the power of open-source collaboration and the flexibility of modern static site generation tools.
Importance of owning and controlling content: Transferring content to personal website using Next.js led to greater control and potential growth, but challenges in migrating from WordPress and using MDX were encountered.
The speaker discovered the importance of owning and controlling one's content after transferring his Twitter hot tips to his website using Next.js. He also shared his experience with the differences in plugin ecosystems between Gatsby and Next.js, and the challenges he faced when migrating his blog posts from WordPress to Next.js using MDX. The speaker emphasized the significance of owning one's content for full control and potential growth, a topic they had previously discussed in the context of blogging platforms. He also mentioned his personal design choices for his website, opting for a grunge texture. The speaker expressed his curiosity about exploring the pros and cons of using Gatsby instead of Next.js for a full-blown website. Overall, the discussion highlighted the importance of owning and controlling content, and the challenges and benefits of using different tools and platforms for website development.
Manipulating grunge PNGs for a visually appealing website design: Instead of loading multiple heavy grunge images, manipulate two PNGs to create an aesthetically pleasing design. Use preferred fonts like Operator Mono and monofonts as display fonts for enhanced visual appeal.
The speaker created an aesthetically pleasing website design by manipulating two grunge PNGs instead of loading multiple heavy grunge images. He also shared his experience with using different fonts, including Operator Mono, for which he received a free license. The speaker expressed his preference for monofonts as display fonts and used complex headings with textures to enhance the visual appeal. He also discussed the use of IDE-style ligatures as back arrows and the challenge of making these elements selectable while maintaining the design. Despite the complexity of some elements, he managed to keep the website readable and developer-friendly.
Applying grunge effects to text in CSS: The speaker uses CSS to creatively apply grunge effects to selected text by overlaying an image with pointer events set to none, appreciates design details like a yellow square related to font size, and values the flexibility and control of CSS in designing web components.
The speaker discovered a creative way to apply grunge effects to selected text in CSS, using the technique of overlaying an image with pointer events set to none. They also appreciated the design detail of a yellow square in the top left corner, whose size is related to the font size of the heading tag using ems. The speaker uses a balance of global styles and component-specific styles in their CSS, utilizing both classes and tag selectors within components. They find that scoped CSS by default allows them to effectively manage the cascade and global styles as needed. The speaker does not use a naming convention like BEM for their selectors, as they find it unnecessary with the use of scope CSS. Overall, the speaker values the flexibility and control that CSS provides in designing their web components.
Leveraging MDX for dynamic and customizable content: MDX, a markdown variant with React and server-side capabilities, enables the creation of complex headings, multimedia content, and custom components while handling server-side functionality, simplifying development.
MDX, a markdown variant that supports JavaScript, offers several advantages for creating dynamic and customizable content. With MDX, you can embed React components directly into markdown files, allowing for the creation of complex headings and the inclusion of multimedia content like YouTube players or graphs. Additionally, MDX enables the replacement of default components, such as headings, with custom ones, resulting in unique and visually appealing formatting. Another benefit of MDX is the ability to handle server-side functionality, like generating Open Graph images using a serverless function and Puppeteer. This eliminates the need for external tools and simplifies the development process. Furthermore, in a Gatsby-powered website, images are automatically handled with Gatsby image queries, making the process of adding images to markdown files more straightforward. Overall, MDX's combination of markdown's ease of use, React's dynamic capabilities, and server-side functionality makes it an excellent choice for creating engaging and visually impressive content.
Creating a visually rich website with Gatsby: server-side and client-side processing, APIs, and image optimization: Use Gatsby Image for compressing and resizing images, serverless functions for pulling in data from external APIs, and consider refreshed GraphQL API for updating client-side data. Be aware of potential build time issues with large numbers of images and explore solutions like Gatsby Parallel Build and Google Cloud Hosting.
Building a dynamic and visually rich website using Gatsby involves a combination of server-side and client-side processing, as well as the use of external APIs and image optimization techniques. The speaker described using Gatsby Image for compressing and resizing images, and serverless functions through Netlify for pulling in data from Instagram, Twitter, and podcasts that require server-side processing. He also mentioned the challenge of updating client-side data and the potential solution of using a refreshed GraphQL API. Another significant issue was the large number of images causing build time issues, which was resolved using an experimental feature called Gatsby Parallel Build and Google Cloud Hosting. Overall, the process required a good understanding of the capabilities and limitations of the various tools and APIs involved, as well as some problem-solving and collaboration with experts in the field.
Faster build times and improved efficiency with Gatsby and Gatsby Cloud: Moving to Gatsby and Gatsby Cloud resulted in quicker build processes, reduced resource usage, and improved code formatting, making website development more productive.
Using Gatsby and Gatsby Cloud for website development offers significant improvements in build times and efficiency, making the process faster and more productive. The speaker shared their experience of moving from a longer build time of 12 minutes with Git push to a much quicker build process with Gatsby Cloud's incremental builds, which only rebuilds the affected page instead of the entire website. This not only saves time but also reduces unnecessary resources. Additionally, the speaker mentioned using a plugin called Gatsby Plugin Prettier Build to format the outputted HTML files, making the view source more readable. Other benefits of the move to Gatsby included maintaining old links for SEO purposes and the website's inherent fast loading speed. However, there were some trade-offs, such as longer build times due to Gatsby images and the potential alternative solution of using a service like Cloudinary. Overall, the speaker expressed satisfaction with the new website and the benefits it brought to their business.
Maintaining self-sufficiency and reducing costs by avoiding external image processing services: Wes Bos values self-sufficiency and cost-effectiveness in his website by opting against external image processing services like Cloudinary and instead preferring static HTML and JavaScript files for images.
The speaker, Wes Bos, values self-sufficient and offline capabilities for his website, opting against relying on external services like Cloudinary for image resizing to maintain control and reduce costs. Although his site uses Gatsby Parallel Build with Google Cloud, he prefers the site to exist as static HTML and JavaScript files once built, rather than having to rely on external services for image processing. While there are plugins like JSON Linxerf's Cloudinary Gatsby Image plugin that could be used for local image resizing, the speaker finds it more cost-effective for his traffic level to not include images at all in his site. This is a deliberate choice he made during the development of his site, which is open-source and available on GitHub. Overall, Wes Bos' approach emphasizes the importance of considering self-sufficiency and cost-effectiveness when building a website.
