Add article about starting a blog

Author: ImFlog

content/posts/starting_a_blog.md

@@ -1,10 +1,89 @@
 +++
 title="Building a blog"
-date=2023-05-01
+date=2023-08-04
 
 [taxonomies]
 categories = ["General"]
 tags = ["blog", "zola"]
+
+[extra]
+comments = true
 +++
 
-TBD ...
+As tradition requires it, this post will do a tour of how this blog is built but also about the rationale behind the blog itself.
+As a blog owner I cheated because this is in fact not my first post but who cares ?
+
+So without further ado, let's get started !
+
+# Why ?
+The reason is pretty simple, I always liked to share knowledge with others.
+Mostly via conferences and some articles posted on my previous companies blogs.
+
+But multiple factors made me reduce this activity:
+* I changed job and I don't have the same amount of time to dedicate to this
+* I also became a dad thus I have less time out of work to prepare for such events
+
+So If I have less time, and I still want to share knowledge, what can I do ?
+
+* I am not very active on social media (twitter and mastodon), I am more there to look for knowledge. 
+  Also, I am not very comfortable with the threads format, and I don't want to be limited by the number of characters.
+* I don't have the competency nor the time to work on video contents. I used to stream on Twitch, and may come back to this in the future,
+  but It's too time-consuming for me. 
+
+So it leaves me with writing blog posts. Even though a lot is already available on the internet, 
+I feel that writing contents for myself can help my future self and maybe others ?
+After 10 years in the IT industry working in multiple domains (consulting, gambling, health startup),
+I want to share tips, I want to share my experience, I want to share my knowledge and this on multiple subjects: technical and organizational ones.
+
+My current company don't really have a company blog (for now) and I want to keep something for me.
+My previous blog posts are still available, but It is a bit sad that I somehow never really had ownership on those.
+So let's change that, and build my own blog ! I already have a lot of content In my mind that I want to share.
+
+# How ?
+I wanted to build something simple, something that I can easily maintain and host.
+That's why I decided to use a static site generator.
+
+## Static site generator
+A static site generator is a tool that takes a bunch of files and generate a static website out of them.
+So nothing too complex on my side, I can just write content and don't have to bother about what's around it.
+I preferably wanted to use a static site generator that uses markdown files, I use markdown a lot in my daily life, and I am very comfortable with it.
+Like this our blog is a stateless website that serve HTML files, like in the good old days.
+
+No JS ! No CSS ! No HTML ! No Database ! Just markdown files !
+
+### Zola
+Zola is a static site generator, it's comparable with Hugo, Jekyll, Pelican, etc...
+It's based on [CommonMark](https://commonmark.org/) a specification for Markdown.
+
+One of the main reason I chose to use Zola instead of the competition is that it's an OSS project written in Rust, with an active community.
+I am a Rust enthusiast, I've used the language in the past (not during my day jobs) and I really like it.
+Having my site generator written in Rust will allow me to contribute to it if I need to.
+
+To use Zola you only need a static binary, no need to install a runtime like NodeJS or Ruby.
+Also, I am not good in all the design things (👋CSS), and Zola has a lot of themes available for free.
+
+This was enough to convince me.
+
+## Hosting
+One of the first thing that I thought was that I am not sure how much time I will be able to dedicate to this blog.
+My family is my priority and I also maintain an open source project that takes some time. I plan to feed this blog when the occasions arise.
+For now, I don't want to invest money if I am not active enough here, So finding something free was one of the criteria.
+
+### Github pages
+I chose to use [GitHub pages](https://pages.github.com/) to host this blog.
+It is a free hosting solution for static websites, it's very simple to use and has a lot of features.
+
+Why did I choose GitHub pages ?
+* I am already familiar with GitHub and it's ecosystem. That's where my OSS projects are versioned.
+* I also used GitHub actions in the past, and I am very comfortable with them.
+* It's free
+
+# Conclusion
+Now you know almost everything behind the technical choices I made.
+Piping Zola and GitHub pages together is very simple and documented in Zola.
+You can check the source code of this blog [here](https://github.com/ImFlog/Imflog.github.io) 
+and the CI/CD pipeline [here](https://github.com/ImFlog/imflog.github.io/blob/main/.github/workflows/build.yml)
+
+Hope you will enjoy reading my future posts, and don't hesitate to comment on them !
+
+Flo.