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There is an observation called Gall's law, which bascially says that a complex system that works must have started as a simple system that works.

Now, with 1500 lines of Javascript my static site generator is by far not a very complex system, but still, it evolved from something much simpler that just worked: a single index.html file which contained everything. For the first year and a bit, when ever I wanted to write, I just opened that one file, prepended a new article before the last one, no boilerplate, no framework, nothing but working with the grain of the web, as if it were the nineties again, et voilà: a blog.

I could of course also have gone with some "batteries charged"-solution, but that would have cost me the intellectual control over my setup of my site from the very start. I would also have speed-run over dozends of decisions that would have been just made for me, which I probably would never have indeed noticed as such.

Some time ago I've read a book, The 99% Invisible City with the subtitle "A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design". It contained many small chapters about all the little things that we usually just pass by without reflecting how much at some point must have been consciously decided and created to keep our highly artificial lifestyle running smoothtly, from utilities to decorative elements, we are surrounded by objects and protocols that were shaped, designed by our fellow human beings.

One could write a similar book about the web, for it is truely astonishing of how many design decisions this incredible intellectual castle in the clouds is made of.