SSG is a developer tool

While I agree with much of Florens’ critique, I think the static site concept has a different purpose than he suggests.

I think static site generators (SSGs) are a response by the developer community to the complications that have arisen from client-heavy websites. If non-developer users find them difficult to use, it’s not really a critique since they aren’t the intended audience.

At its best, an SSG should be one step in a development pipeline; more like a developer tool than an all-in-one website builder. An enterprising developer can plug it into a larger framework to allow his non-developer colleagues to write effortless content, but it’s not the only tool the developer needs to make this happen.

SSGs need a broader ecosystem of pluggable functionality to allow developers to build user-friendly JAMstack apps. The principles of the IndieWeb encourage this style of pluggable developer building blocks. Let’s create the pluggable services and templates needed to architect a user-friendly web for everyone!