[nicolaslem]

I think static site generators need a more rigid content API. Problems start when these tools try to pack too many features trying to make everyone happy. They become small CMS and as the author mentions introduce poorly documented hard to grasp features.

Rolling your own specific static generator is quite easy, the bulk of the work being gluing libraries together. What is worse, using an existing tool in a way it is not meant to be used or maintaining your own?

[tresoldi]

I felt the same when looking for a generator that could be learned in one afternoon and which would allow me to easily change templates/themes whenever I felt like it, months later. The solution was to rely exclusively on pandoc for markdown to HTML conversion, generating some .md files when necessary (such as from a bibliography, or if so I wanted from a blog/ directory). All without any real templating and relying only upon my bare CSS knowledge -- a nice side effect was forcing me to adopt a minimalist approach.

The entire "generator" is a silly Python script: https://github.com/tresoldi/tresoldi.github.io/blob/master/b... (the site is at http://www.tiagotresoldi.com/ , in case anyone cares).

[pknopf]

> Rolling your own specific static generator is quite easy

Exactly. I created a tool to help with this as well.

https://github.com/pauldotknopf/statik

It has no features, by design.