Eleventy is my new jam(stack)
What you love is what you do
Recently a spiritual advisor within my creative circle spoke about doing work that you love. The idea occurred to me to consider what I choose to be doing and how that reflects my passion.Recently I have taken a deep dive into learning the in's and out's of a program named Eleventy. I've studied tutorials and parsed documentation and put a sustained effort into getting it working.
History
Eleventy was first published approximately December, 2017. Eleventy began to be noticed and talked about by a certain core of web mavens who I follow on Twitter.Intrigued by the buzz, I took a stab at embracing Eleventy a couple of years ago. I wasn't able to invest the time to work through side issues and get it working and so I set it aside.
This year I invested many days into getting Eleventy into my tool belt.
Eleventy is a JavaScript method of templating websites. It generates static HTML page output and can handle data and functions. The important distinction about programs like Eleventy is that it builds static files on the server.
A comparison most people will know is with WordPress, a php system that is employed to build 25% of websites today. The difference is that WordPress compiles templates on the server but builds the pages on the client.
WordPress is built with php. WordPress code is often bulky and ugly and because it is building pages across the Internet, WordPress has some security risks.
A static website builder named Jekyll, built in Ruby, launched in 2008. It became popular as a way to build websites housed on Github, a social media website for sharing programs and code.
For many years developers have sought ways to compile website templates using JavaScript instead. JavaScript templating gained interest many years ago. Programs like Mustache and Handlebars led the way. JavaScript templating is now built into popular modern frameworks such as AngularJS and React.
My business website is built using Gulp and Handlebars. To be honest it seems to me that working with Eleventy is very similar to working with Gulp & Handlebars.
The new now
Many developers are doing amazing things with Eleventy now. It is possible to implement additional programs such as React or Vue and connect Eleventy to third-party APIs.As the platform matures people are building additional components and APIs that add extra functionality.
What is most attractive to me is the ability to build complete design systems. There is no reason why very large enterprise systems cannot be built upon the Eleventy platform.
A mirror to my soul
What I see about myself is that while I could devote time to learning other things, I am attracted to this kind of web development. I am a man who wants to know the code. I want to have the means of production under my thumb.Eleventy is not on the radar of career recruiters. I do not see job descriptions asking for Eleventy skills. But I like building the structure of websites. The people in the know, know. I see template scaffolding as valuable, along with building simple and effective CSS cascades and writing with concise searchable phrases.
When a client comes to me I am capable of building their brand, content, assets and a scalable website capable of growing with their business. Eleventy will be a part of my soup-to-nuts development work-flow.