How this site is made

I made a new website recently. My goals:

• Modern-looking
• Easy to maintain, minimal infrastructure
• Content lasts indefinitely even as web technologies come and go

I decided on a static site, with content in Markdown and a modest amount of templating. I chose the Hugo static site generator with the PaperMod theme, plus a second theme for CV-type timelines. I used bundled system fonts (no Google Fonts tracking).

I added small customisations using CSS and Hugo shortcodes including colour themes, a general timeline (in addition to the CV one), handy infoboxes and the like. Hugo makes this quite easy to achieve while still using mostly standard markdown. That bodes well for being able to move to other systems as the years roll on.

The full site source is at codeberg.org/danshearer/static-personal-site.

I’ve used many templating systems over the years, including from before there were websites. If you think Hugo looks complicated, consider that the problem space is much harder than it looks at first, having a lot in common with writing a compiler.