Built with Jekyll

This blog is built with jekyll.

That may seem like an odd choice considering what I do for a living.

Wordpress is a dynamic database driven CMS with a proper admin. Setup is dead simple. Administration is smooth and clean. Most hosts provide one click installs. Rampages here at VCU provides free blogs to anyone with a vcu email address.

Jekyll on the other hand has no database, is completely static, and has no admin. Setup requires terminal, administration can only be done in a text editor, and the best install option requires github and a working knowledge of git.

So why in the world am I using Jekyll?

I would argue that Jekyll is to modern web development as WordPress is to web publishing. WordPress lowers the barrier to publishing on the web. I work with people everyday who have no experience with wordpress or any web publishing platform for that matter and yet, with WordPress, can setup a website or blog and have full ownership of their past, current, and future content with minimal friction.

I believe that a motivated individual could also get a site up and running with Jekyll without a background in web development with minimal friction. The primary barrier to web development is fear. Fear that you will somehow break your computer - or worse - the internet!

I can assure you, the Google will be just fine :)

Let's dive head first into some serious workflows and see how not that hard it really is.