Sarmad Gulzar

This site now runs on Zola

· 2 min read

Every few years I rebuild my website, and every few years I swear it’s the last time. This is that time, again.

The new stack is Zola — a static site generator that ships as a single binary. No node_modules, no plugin ecosystem to babysit, no build pipeline that quietly rots while I’m not looking. You write Markdown, it emits HTML, and the whole site builds in a few milliseconds.

What I optimized for

A short list, in order:

  1. Reading. Text set in a proper serif, a measure around 70 characters, generous line height. Nothing competes with the words.
  2. Speed. There is no JavaScript on this site. Fonts are self-hosted. A post is one HTML file and one stylesheet.
  3. Longevity. Content is Markdown files in a git repo. If Zola disappears tomorrow, the writing survives untouched.

Dark mode follows your system preference — no toggle, no flash, no cookie remembering your choice, because there’s no choice to remember.

If you want the details: the fonts are Newsreader for prose and IBM Plex Mono for dates and code, syntax highlighting is done at build time by Zola’s built-in highlighter, and the feed lives at /atom.xml if RSS is your thing. It usually is, for the right people.