rib/README.md

# rib

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Rib is a static site generator written in Haskell that reuses existing tools
(`Shake`, `Lucid` and `Clay`) and is thus non-monolithic. It is nearly done but
still a work in progress and will soon be ready for general use.

## Example

See `./example` to see how the `Rib` library can be used to write your own
static site generator in a few lines of code which includes the HTML and CSS of
the site:

```
$ cloc --by-file example/Main.hs
[...]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File                             blank        comment           code
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
example/Main.hs                     10              3             45
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
```

See `./doc` for a real-world example---Rib's own documentation site.

(Refer to `Rib.Simple` if you need further customization of the Shake action.)

With Rib you do not have to deal with less powerful template engines or
write raw HTML/CSS by hand. Do everything in Haskell, and concisely at that!

---

To get the example site up and running run:

```bash
cd ./example
../ghcid
```

This will:

- Drop into a nix-shell with needed Haskell dependencies
- Compile the `rib` library and `example/Main.hs` through ghcid
  - Whenever Haskell sources change ghcid reloads them
- Run `example/Main.hs:main` with `serve -w` CLI arguments
- This does the following:
  1. Convert sources in `./example/a` into `./example/b` using Shake
  2. Listens for changes to `./example/a`, and re-generate them (i.e., the `-w` argument)
  3. Start a HTTP server serving the `./example/b` directory (i.e, the `serve` command)

Thus, by running that one command one gets a production-quality web server
serving the statically generated HTML files which automatically get regenerated
when the source content changes. What's more, we may change the Haskell sources
such as `Main.hs` and ghcid will recompile and relaunch the whole thing.

With `rib` we get hot reload for free.