I’m pleased to announce the launch of the MakeStaticSite project website, hosted under the domain makestaticsite.sh — the same as the script’s filename, of course! I’ve set this up to disseminate the burgeoning set of Bash shell scripts that provide a flexible means of deploying static versions of websites, thus avoiding the headache of server-side scripting engines ready to process all manner of web requests with various security-related risks that entails.

Despite hearing that monolithic database-driven content management systems are ‘old hat’ and that developers are shunning PHP, it remains the case that huge numbers of people — of varying technical competence — continue to develop sites in content management systems based on PHP and MySQL/MariaDB. This is particularly true of WordPress; if you are hiring a web editor to maintain a blog, then it’s likely they have some familiarity with this platform. And it’s that familiarity that MakeStaticSite is designed to complement — for those sites that don’t have much in the way of server-side interactivity, they should be able to carry on as normal with just a few additional steps to publication of a version that looks and feels the same, but is fast and secure.

I should confess that before writing MakeStaticSite, which amounts to around 2000 lines of code, my longest Bash script ran to just a few lines! I am really just a beginner, though thanks to various developers who have shared their knowledge on blogs and Q&A websites such as Stack Exchange, I have been able to find solutions to the various coding problems that have arisen.

Looking to the future, there are many extensions and improvements that could be made. This is where I hope others will contribute …