I have moved my blog from Wordpress.com to GitHub Pages and Jekyll! Here’s some background:

I have had this blog on Wordpress.com for a few years now, and have been generally happy. Still, this was sitting with me for a while:

Why not Wordpress.com:

  • Becuase I had some minor technical issues.
  • Because I wanted more control over my blog.
  • Becuase I am paying there, and still they have ads in my blog of which I get no profit share.
  • Becuase I like the idea of blogging like a hacker.

Why GitHub Pages:

  • Because it’s what the cool kids are doing these days.
  • Becuase GitHub is well known with developers and since this is a tech blog it makes sense.
  • Because it’s free and easy.

Now, GitHub Pages is just a hosting option. You basically put files in a git repo and they are served out of a github.io domain. Quesion is - what’s the CMS that will generate those static files for you, including styles, layouts, and so on… Turns out there are quite a few static site generators out there, and you have to choose. Sites like staticgen.com can help, but it’s up to you to decide. As you know by now, I chose Jekyll.

Why Jekyll:

  • Because it’s the most popular static site generator.
  • Because it moves rapidly and has a good community.
  • Becuase it’s the only one that’s natively supported with GitHub pages (they run Jekyll).

I must say - I am not a Ruby guy and never have been. This was not an easy choice for me, but still I am happy with Jekyll. I even created my own theme for Jekyll which wasn’t hard at all.

In the next post I will document this journey from a technical perspective.