"Hello World!" (Or How I Convinced Myself I Could Start a Blog)
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- 4 Min To Read
- 09 Jan, 2025
Table Of Contents
“Hello World!” (Or How I Convinced Myself I Could Start a Blog)
Okay, so here I am, starting a blog like it’s 2008 and blogs are still a thing people do. The first thing every developer does when learning something new is write a “Hello World!” program, which is exactly what it sounds like - you make the computer say “Hello World!” and then feel disproportionately proud of yourself for approximately 3.5 seconds.
Info
This tradition started back in 1978 when some guys named Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie wrote a book about C programming, and now it’s like this WHOLE THING where if you don’t start with “Hello World!” the programming gods will smite you or something.
..Actually just Googled it and apparently Dennis Ritchie didn’t write the Hello World part, that was all Brian Kernighan. Sorry Dennis! Though honestly he probably doesn’t care because he sadly passed away in 2011 and also I have like zero readers right now so…
ANYWAY.
I decided to build this blog using something called Hugo, which is a “static site generator” and if you’re already glazing over please know that I FEEL YOU but stick with me for like 30 seconds while I explain why this matters:
A Completely Over-Detailed Explanation of Static Site Generators That Nobody Asked For
You know how sometimes you go to a website and it takes FOREVER to load and you’re sitting there wondering if your internet is broken or if the website is broken or if perhaps the entire concept of digital communication was a terrible mistake? That’s usually because the website is “dynamic” which means it’s doing a bunch of complicated stuff behind the scenes every single time someone visits:
- Checking databases
- Running complex calculations
- Probably mining bitcoin
- Maybe plotting world domination
- Who even knows what else
But with a static site generator like Hugo, all that work is done BEFOREHAND. It’s like meal prepping but for websites. Instead of cooking every time someone gets hungry (dynamic sites), you do all the cooking on Sunday and then just reheat things (static sites).
Warning
Is this a terrible analogy? YES. Am I sticking with it? ALSO YES.
Why I Actually Chose Hugo
To be honest I chose Hugo because:
- It’s supposed to be really fast
- A friend recommended it
- I already had three existential crises trying to pick a static site generator and finally just went “FINE, HUGO IT IS” while panic-eating an entire bag of chocolate chips that were supposed to be for cookies
The Part Where I Try to Sound Professional About Security
Here’s what a basic Hugo site structure looks like, in case you’re curious:
my-site/
├── content/
│ └── posts/
│ └── hello-world.md
├── layouts/
├── static/
└── config.toml
So here we are. My first blog post. I probably spent way too long writing this and somehow managed to turn a simple “Hello World” into a rambling manifesto about static site generators. But hey, at least it’s on brand for developers to overthink everything, right?
RIGHT?
frantically refreshes page to make sure it actually published
realizes I forgot to commit the changes
googles “how to use git” for the 47th time this week
Tip
If you enjoyed this post, you can follow my blog by… actually I haven’t set up RSS yet. Or you could follow me on Twitter except I haven’t added those buttons either. Maybe just bookmark the page and check back occasionally? Is that still a thing people do?
goes back to panic-eating chocolate chips
How’s that for a first post?
(Note to self: Maybe add some actual navigation buttons before publishing this. Also figure out what “publishing” means in this context. Also maybe learn how Hugo works. Actually, maybe I should have done that before writing this whole post…)