About HAP's Learning Lab
🔬 What I Learned
I learned that static site generators pre-render HTML at build time instead of generating it on every request. This makes sites faster, more secure, and cheaper to host—often FREE!
I also learned that "zero-config" doesn't mean "no configuration possible." It means sensible defaults that just work. Eleventy let me build a working blog before I even created a config file!
🎯 How I Practiced
I cloned eleventy-base-blog from GitHub and customized it step by step. First I replaced the sample posts with my own content. Then I added HAP colors and fonts. Then I created custom shortcodes for my character images.
Each change taught me something new about how Eleventy works. By the time I finished, I understood the whole system—not from reading docs, but from actually building!
🎨 My Philosophy
Start from a working template, not a blank file. Understand what each piece does before changing it. Make one change at a time so you know what broke if something goes wrong.
And here's the big one Prof. Teeters taught me: sometimes removing features you don't need is the best solution. Simpler is almost always better!
🤔 My Advice
Don't try to learn everything at once! Focus on getting a blog deployed first, even if it looks generic. Then customize it piece by piece.
By the time you're done, you'll understand Eleventy deeply—not from reading documentation (though that helps!), but from actually using it to build something real that you can share with the world.