This personal webpage is built using Jekyll and there are three reasons why I chose this rather than directly writing static html files.

  • Easy to edit. Editing HTML page involve a lot of repeated code for each added element, thus a lot of repeated copy and paste processes. Jekyll makes editing much easier by simply writing markdown files.
  • Update without consistency issues. Just because I’m building a static website doesn’t mean my life stays “static”. In order to keep my personal page fresh and organized, I’ll need identical element for each html page, say, a navigation bar. Once I want to change/add one category in the navigator, I have to change the code of the navigator element in every html file. With Jekyll, I can stop worrying about consistency among different html files and focus only on the contents.
  • Opensource and widespread use. For a lazy perfectionist like myself, I really want a nice personal page while avoiding the effort of designing the style from scrach. Jekyll is open source and has a lot of fantastic themes developed by its users, which makes my life easier.

Choosing a Theme

Adding Content

Web Hosting

Jekyll also offers powerful support for code snippets:

def print_hi(name)
  puts "Hi, #{name}"
end
print_hi('Tom')
#=> prints 'Hi, Tom' to STDOUT.

Check out the Jekyll docs for more info on how to get the most out of Jekyll. File all bugs/feature requests at Jekyll’s GitHub repo. If you have questions, you can ask them on Jekyll Talk.