To start here, I had to once again share my appreciation for the overall design and style that you’ve established with Hugo. I’ve basically spent the past month getting to know it and building three sites, which I hope to announce soon.
During this time I would have to say that I spent 90% of my time in writing content (with the just-as-amazing Typora) and only about 10% dealing with learning and studying the guts. To me, that is an incredible testament to your elegance and dedication to some really great style. Really well done here. Also please keep in mind that I am from .NET and really do not have any experience with Go, so that should put the exclamation mark on my comments.
The reason for this post is that now I have higher ambitions. I am looking to perhaps take one of these sites to the “next level” and perhaps put a business model around it. I actually already have a site that I am modelling this after, and you can see that here:
My question is… would Hugo be able to do this? If so, how closely? That Is, are there any major technical hurdles that can be observed from doing the above site in Hugo? Any insight/recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you again for all your great work here. I have been sharing with everyone I know in .NET land.
since Hugo is a static site generator we have to look for things that aren’t static, i.e. things that Hugo and the generated website can’t handle on it’s own.
While browsing the linked website most content seems to be static. One exception would be the contact form. There are external services that allow you to handle the GET/POST request of the form and send you the content as an email. They would be sort of a proxy.
On another page there’s a search with filter options. Basic search can be handled by a javascript library. If the searchable data are small and mostly static you can use Hugo’s data files and generate a JSON file that acts as source for the search library. Alternative, you can use JS to call an external API to request the search result for a given query.
At the bottom line ask yourself what is not static and can’t be done (reasonably well) with Javascript.
Awesome @digitalcraftsman thanks for the input and direction. What I am basically looking for is a simple proof-of-concept to determine interest, market traction, and possibly generate revenue. I am not even sure I need a search for this first version. What I would need is simply a way to buy and sell product, while learning how this cryptobusiness works.
The other route I was thinking was doing a fundraiser/kickstarter of some sort, but that seems like a lot of work. Not to mention a lot of stress of having to have hold, manage, and work with all the expectations, etc.
If I could build a quick site with Hugo here, it would allow me to sell product that would essentially raise the money that I am looking for so that I can tackle the more ambitious problems, like this one. FWIW, the reason why I have been thinking fundraiser/donations is that it has been suggested numerous times in the comments of that idea.
Alright, I think I have enough here to continue. Thanks for your feedback and taking the time to walk through this with me, @digitalcraftsman – btw, awesome name! Very apt for where I have had my mind lately.
I’m not sure, what’s the technical challenge with a service like cryptokitties? I don’t know much about Blockhain, but I suspect that like any online business website you’ll need to keep track of customers, manage ‘inventory’, and so on.
With your background, have you looked at AWS Lambda? In theory you can go serverless and have your .NET Core code manage the non-static aspects. But if you also plan features like a buyers forum then it isn’t the right tool for the job, obviously. (Hence my first question what the technical problem is you’re facing.)
If you build the website with Hugo, you can connect a payment service to it. With Snipcart you can add ecommerce features to your website. If you’re looking more like fundraising money, you can use a SendOwl account or Gumroad account. And there are dozens of other options there.
Yeah @Jura good question. Honestly, I am being lazy. I woke up this morning thinking what a silly question this was and I should have simply done my research a little better before asking. What I am primarily concerned with is wondering if Hugo had these sorts of scenarios accounted for already, or if there were obvious barriers to doing so.
Currently my thought is to perhaps use Hugo to generate the products and then use iframes to provide the dynamic content. Or as you suggest, having a server provide the data which is then databound to key aspects/containers/divs. I am using Azure, however, and we have Azure Functions on our side of the world.
I will be sure to update here if I have any success, for sure.
Also, if you haven’t gotten into blockchain yet, I highly recommend it. As with Hugo it is loaded with the stuff of inspiration, IMO.
In addition to the hooplah with bitcoin and such, it essentially brings power back to the user where they can specify exactly which information goes where. IMO this sort of thinking is about to flip our profession on its head. Especially so if merchants adopt it to buy things with it (which is what I am looking into here). Here’s a good example that I was researching today that I hope to incorporate into my efforts here:
Be not limited by your tools but by your imagination. Hugo is but one tool. Let it be the hood ornament on your car of creativity. That said don’t build with Ethereum. Build with EOS. Because WASM. Godspeed.
P.s. Just installed Typora. In b4 beta ended. Thanks for the link.
Thank you for the kind and inspirational words, @anon94969202! There is certainly a lot to absorb here and i am taking the path of whatever is simplest, works. Just like Hugo. I’ll be sure to update here when I have landed on something that I can share.
When looking at dynamic aspects of a web app, it is standard to think about an API. Even tools like Wordpress and Microsoft’s SharePoint are going this way now. Even with dynamic app sites, much of the code is static and the bridge to dynamic content is, of course, front-end JavaScript. But all of that is delivered statically.
So use the most appropriate tool to you for the back-end API and Hugo to deliver the front-end if that is useful to you.
While not directly on-topic, I’m sure there would be some folk here, including me, who would gladly talk to you about various back-end API delivery tools.
Hey @TotallyInformation thanks for that pointer. I am indeed looking at ASP.NET Core’s API functionality for what I have in mind. Although, I am not sure if this will even be necessary as it turns out that BTC already has mechanisms in place to issue assets and the like, without the need for smart contracts or anything fancy like that: http://coloredcoins.org/faq/
Which is super valuable from my perspective because I have always absolutely HATED relational databases and SQL, and as NoSQL shows I am not alone. But the really interesting thing here is it appears that if you structure your application correctly, you can do away with NoSQL as well and read everything from the blockchain.
I could be fundamentally misunderstanding something here, however, as this is only like day two of my intensive blockchain immersion here, so please read my understanding with that consideration in mind.
No problem. Many API’s now return JSON structures or at least have that as an option which makes life a lot easier for front-end devs. I’m not a fan of .NET myself, finding it far to complex for what it achieves. However, if that is what you are familiar with, it makes sense.
For DotNet you may want to have a look at Mono. It cross-compiles so you should have an easier time building your app to run on different types of hardware. If you have Visual Studio installed already mono and the CLI.
Ah that’s a good point @anon94969202. From what I understand, however, is that the new .NET Core is basically the same runtime as mono now, being able to compile to unix, mac, and of course Windows. .NET Core 2.1 has had a lot of work done on it to improve its performance as well. The Mono runtime is being used in Xamarin scenarios as well as the new WASM from what I understand.
Also, I did get an email notification that read something about longest chain vs. dropped dust limit. I am not familiar with any of those, and a quick search with my limited knowledge did not seem to turn up anything that revealed what could be meant here. I would for sure appreciate any links in this matter to help assist my newbish aspirations here.
Yes, that’s correct. Microsoft are really pushing hard to bring .NET to other platforms and to open source advocates. It is also behind the latest version of PowerShell now being available cross-platform.
FWIW, as mentioned in my original topic, I said I was planning on making an announcement regarding some sites that I have put together with Hugo, and I have done so here, if interested:
Thanks again for all the engagement and friendly help here and elsewhere!
I am looking to perhaps take one of these sites to the “next level” and perhaps put a business model around it. I actually already have a site that I am modelling this after, and you can see that here:
Not to mention a lot of stress of having to have hold, manage, and work with all the expectations, etc.
I woke up this morning thinking what a silly question this was and I should have simply done my research a little better before asking. What I am primarily concerned with is wondering if Hugo had these sorts of scenarios accounted for already, or if there were obvious barriers to doing so.
I’ll be sure to update here when I have landed on something that I can share.
But the really interesting thing here is it appears that if you structure your application correctly, you can do away with NoSQL as well and read everything from the blockchain. 
