This content originally appeared on Adactio: Journal and was authored by Adactio: Journal
I’ve been going buildless—or as Brad crudely puts it, raw-dogging websites on a few projects recently. Not just obviously simple things like Clearleft’s Browser Support page, but sites like:
They also have 0 dependencies.
Funnily enough, many build tools advertise their superior “Developer Experience” (DX). For my money, there’s no better DX than shipping code straight to the browser and not having to worry about some cryptic
node_moduleserror in between.
Making websites without a build step is a gift to your future self. When you open that project six months or a year or two years later, there’ll be no faffing about with npm updates, installs, or vulnerabilities.
Need to edit the CSS? You edit the CSS. Need to change the markup? You change the markup.
It’s remarkably freeing. It’s also very, very performant.
If you’re thinking that your next project couldn’t possibly be made without a build step, let me tell you about a phrase I first heard in the indie web community: “Manual ‘till it hurts”. It’s basically a two-step process:
- Start doing what you need to do by hand.
- When that becomes unworkable, introduce some kind of automation.
It’s remarkable how often you never reach step two.
I’m not saying premature optimisation is the root of all evil. I’m just saying it’s premature.
Start simple. Get more complex if and when you need to.
You might never need to.
This content originally appeared on Adactio: Journal and was authored by Adactio: Journal
Adactio: Journal | Sciencx (2024-09-08T10:18:11+00:00) Manual ’till it hurts. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2024/09/08/manual-till-it-hurts/
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