Frontend First

Saying goodbye to static generation

Episode Notes

Sam and Ryan chat about their recent work migrating Build UI from a statically generated site to a run-time server-rendered app using Next.js. They talk about their past experience working on server-rendered apps, the problems that static sites were created to solve, and the tradeoffs involved within the static-to-dynamic continuum.

Topics include:

• 0:00 - Intro
• 2:05 - How we built EmberMap with SSR + caching buckets with Redis
• 8:36 - How we launched Build UI as a static site with dynamic workarounds
• 13:15 - The problem with static-only sites
• 14:50 - First potential solution: client-side rendering of dynamic data
• 18:01 - Second potential solution: multiple versions of each page
• 25:25 - Third potential solution: run-time server rendering
• 35:44 - Why we left static
• 39:55 - Details and challenges of moving to getServerSideProps

Links:

• Build UI