I listened to a few downloaded youtube videos (sort of a choose your own adventure poor man’s podcast) while I was on a recent road trip. They were by Miriam Schwab, and one was about speeding up your site, (and so was this one) and a very approachable one was about securing your site. I listened to one about content security policies (and another on the WordCamp 2018 livestream Guitar track, starting at 29:02) which, full disclosure, was a little over my head. Like, not completely over but I had to stand on tiptoe. Both were good, especially since they challenge us to start thinking about ways to make our sites faster and and more secure; at the end she talks about her new company Strattic which sounds like it will do both. Or like caching, only better.
I described it to my dad thus:
Molly: Picture you could make a cardboard cutout of me, and it was ready instantly.
Dad: So we wouldn’t have to wait for you to get ready before we could leave for breakfast.
Molly: Yes.
Dad: Like, it’s just a cardboard cutout so it’s ready to go, we could just pick it up and there’s no waiting.
Molly: Yes. But also, the cardboard cutout can’t be hurt. Like, it’s impervious to stab wounds. So it’s me, it’s the latest version of me, but ready at a moment’s notice and completely secure.
Dad, interrupting: …stab wounds?!?!
Molly: What I mean is, in this example I/the website can’t be hurt. Your site is the latest version, but blazing fast because it’s also static, and un-hackable, because it’s not a living, dynamic thing.
I’m only curious about how often you’ll need to do changes – obviously on most sites pushing out a new version once a day would be more than fine. But on huge sites or membership sites it could be a problem. Also, I guess this wouldn’t work for something like membership site with a discussion board. And – I’m showing my ignorance here, but I think it would interfere with any contact forms giving confirmation messages, right?
Still, I love the elegance of the security and speed inherent in simply serving a static site. What do you think?
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