Why Jekyll?
Why Jekyll instead of WordPress, where I have experience?
I wanted to use the GitHub pages feature, so that narrowed it down to static site generators. I looked at Nikola and Pelican, but I think I would get too distracted by the tool (written in python) instead of writing. So the third option I looked at was Jekyll.
Pluses:
- Native GitHub pages integration
- Large community
- Huge assortment of themes
- Native markdown support
- Written in Ruby
- Mature
Setup
I followed this guide using the clone locally method. Since the config file is in YAML it was easy to modify the parameters. It took just as long to add another property to my Google Analytics as it did to get to ‘Hello World’ in Jekyll.
The Story So Far
Having a local clone is handy. Drafts are handled by working on a branch. Creating is just as easy as the guide says - create a new .md file and start typing.
Next Steps
One of the driving factors is to give me a reason to learn markdown. Ian Lurie has me convinced.