I recently made ElementalCSS, my CSS framework/library, public. I created a website and added it to a Github repository. It was an exciting step for me as a developer, and I was thrilled to see people taking an interest in it (mostly because it’s really small and nowhere near finished).
However, the other day, someone opened a new issue suggesting that I should remove Gulp and instead use LightningCSS. I use Gulp to compile the SASS files and do css compression. I’m sure there are more modern methods to do this, including Lightning CSS, but I politely declined the suggestion. Why? Because I’m perfectly happy with how boring Gulp is.
I understand Gulp is ‘old’ but you know what? I like it. I like that it uses JavaScript and looks like JavaScript. It’s familiar to me, and that makes it easy for me to write custom functions and add them into the workflow.
Even better - it’s stable and reliable. It doesn’t constantly require updates or introduce breaking changes like many of the newer tools out there.
Speaking of stability and reliability, let’s talk about Jekyll. I’ve mentioned a few times that I now use Jekyll on most of my websites. Now here’s the interesting part - when reading up on Jekyll, I saw a comment from its developers mentioning the lack of recent updates.
Instead of seeing this as a negative point or a sign that Jekyll is falling behind, they explained that Jekyll is feature complete. It does exactly what it was designed to do without any unnecessary fuss or frills.
And you know what? That resonated with me because there’s something beautiful about simplicity and functionality without constant updates or changes for the sake of change.
Sure, React may be all the rage right now with its flashy features and powerful capabilities. But when all you see on social media are people talking about updates and breaking changes, it is a relief to know that I can just get on with building my sites.
That’s why I love Jekyll. It produces static HTML, which will continue to work online long after the hype of frameworks like React has faded away (if it hasn’t already). Jekyll is steady, reliable, and does its job without any unnecessary drama.
In a world where technology seems to change at the speed of light, there’s something comforting about sticking with what works. Boring technology may not have all the bells and whistles or the latest buzzwords attached to it, but it gets the job done.
So unless there’s a compelling reason for me to switch, I’m going to stick with Jekyll and Gulp and other “boring” technologies that keep on doing their job silently in the background.
Because sometimes, boring technology is beautiful.
Let me know what you think on Mastodon, or BlueSky (or Twitter X if you must).
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