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Jamstacked Issue 52

Are edge functions a game changer?

Published: Mar 30, 2022

Your update on all things Jamstack

#​52 — March 31, 2022
✦ web version

A project I'm working on has me thinking a lot about edge functions lately. If you're new to the concept, edge functions are basically serverless functions that run at the CDN level. This means that you remove any latency caused by the distance between your user and the server region where your serverless functions are deployed.

One of the things that made Jamstack game changing was that it moved your application from being deployed on servers in a single location/region to being deployed to a CDN. Are edge functions as game changing? I'm unsure. For specific use cases, they can remove important latency, but only if your data is cached or resides with/close to the function and some providers have strict limits on what you can do with them. It'll be interesting to watch as this space evolves.

— Brian Rinaldi

↘︎ What's good

Conquering JavaScript Hydration
Hydration plays a big role in most of the JavaScript-based static site generators, but can sometimes be a performance bottleneck. This article is very conceptual, but digs into some of the ways in which newer frameworks are rethinking hydration.

Ryan Carniato

Maximizing The Convenience Factor: Archetypes in Hugo
Archetypes in Hugo are basically templates for creating content that can be used with the hugo new command. This dives deep into how to create them and potential pitfalls.

Bryce Wray

Add a Comments Section to an 11ty Site with MongoDB & Netlify
Build a custom commenting solution with a MongoDB backend for an Eleventy site. Comments are loaded during the build but also updated client-side for new comments.

Nic Raboy

✂︎ Tools and Resources

  • docsQL – A web app designed to run locally that allows you to search and analyze Markdown files using SQL.
  • Radish – A new React-based SSG that doesn't output any client-side JS and includes support for Markdown, data in TOML/YAML/JSON and is offline-first.
  • The new Eleventy Vite Plugin – A video looking at the new Vite plugin that runs as middleware on the dev server and can postprocess your output.
  • Coding Design Systems Episode 11 – Zach Leatherman, creator of Eleventy, was a guest on this show to talk about it.

❖ Tidbits

StrapiConf Announcements: v4 Migration Guide, TypeScript Support, Dark Mode and More
StrapiConf happened a couple weeks ago and included news of a new marketplace for Strapi plugins, new migration guides, and a beta of TypeScript support.

Anastasiia Shpiliak

Building a Developer Portfolio: Creating a NextJS Blog in TypeScript Using The Notion API
This tutorial shows how you can use Notion as a headless CMS. It walks through converting each content type in Notion (and there are a bunch) for rendering in a Next.js app.

Alan John

Programmatic SEO with Next.js
This demo app uses ISR (i.e. deferred rendering) in Next.js to programmatically generate SEO landing pages for topics.

Agam More

Guide: Netlify-to-Discord Notifications
A step-by-step guide to receive Discord notifications from your site deployed on Netlify.

Rico Sta. Cruz

Thank you for reading. — Brian