First Post

This is the first post demonstrating the capabilities of our static site generator. It showcases various markdown features and the site’s reflection capabilities.

I started this blog back in August of 2011 with no expectations about what it would become or how much viewership it would get. Back then, I was a PhD student, and I wanted to be able to write some kind of journal or log with various thoughts about the research work I was doing. I find that by writing my thoughts down, sometimes it helps me articulate them and figure out certain things. It can even be therapeutic. Over the years, I went on to publish 159 posts on this blog about a wide variety of subjects. Looking back, not everything I wrote is of the same quality level, but I’ve made the Hacker News front page more times than I can count. This blog has been an invaluable tool in connecting with like-minded people. It got me valuable feedback, speaking gigs, jobs, and even helped me make new friends.

Markdown Features

The generator supports all standard markdown features:

  • Bold text and italic text
  • Links with smart URL handling
  • Images and other media
  • Tables, footnotes, and more

Lists

  1. Ordered lists
  2. With multiple items
    • And nested items
    • That can be unordered

Blockquotes

"The best way to predict the future is to invent it." — Alan Kay

Code Highlighting

The syntax highlighter supports many languages:

from pathlib import Path

class Site:
    def __init__(self, content_dir):
        self.pages = []
        self.load_pages(content_dir)
    
    def load_pages(self, directory):
        for md_file in Path(directory).rglob('*.md'):
            self.pages.append(Page(md_file))

# Build the site
python ssg.py build

# Watch for changes
python ssg.py watch

Smart Typography

The generator automatically converts quotes and dashes:

  • "Smart quotes" are applied automatically
  • Em-dashes — like this — are converted
  • Ellipses… become proper ellipsis characters

Site Context

Since every page has access to the full site context, we can do things like:

  • List all pages with a specific tag
  • Create automatic navigation between posts
  • Generate category and tag indexes
  • Build sitemaps and RSS feeds

This post has 6 sibling pages in the site!