Added post for Static Shock, added draft for why Flutter needs to be …

…able to build IDEs.

bin/flutter_bounty_hunters_blog.dart

@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ Future<void> main(List<String> arguments) async {
     ..plugin(const JinjaPlugin())
     ..plugin(const PrettyUrlsPlugin())
     ..plugin(const SassPlugin())
+    ..plugin(const DraftingPlugin())
     ..plugin(RssPlugin(
       site: RssSiteConfiguration(
         title: "Blog | Flutter Bounty Hunters",

source/posts/why-flutter-needs-to-be-able-to-build-ides.md

@@ -0,0 +1,88 @@
+---
+title: Why Flutter needs to be able to build IDEs
+description: Can Flutter be used to build an IDE? Not right now. But it should.
+publishDate: 2024-05-11
+headerImageUrl: /images/posts/why-flutter-needs-to-be-able-to-build-ides/header.png
+previewImageUrl: /images/posts/why-flutter-needs-to-be-able-to-build-ides/preview.png
+draft: true
+---
+
+I've long planned to build an IDE so that I can write Flutter code with Flutter. Each time that
+I've mentioned this goal within the community, I've received pushback that such an IDE isn't
+necessary. But even more than that, the Flutter community doesn't even seem to think that Flutter
+should prioritize the capabilities that would be required to build an IDE with Flutter. I find
+this to be a short-sighted perspective. Let's talk about why.
+
+## The big IDE options are good enough
+When discussing IDEs, the first place that a Flutter developer's brain tends to go is to one of
+the big three: VSCode, Android Studio, XCode.
+
+![](/images/posts/why-flutter-needs-to-be-able-to-build-ides/the-big-three.png)
+
+The big three IDEs have been used to write and build nearly every Flutter app in existence.
+Therefore, obviously, the big three must be enough, right?
+
+Technically, it's true that the existing IDE offerings must be at least "good enough" to produce
+all existing Flutter experiences. However, this says nothing of the developer experience in those
+IDEs, nor does it speak to the broad set of possible futures that might be unlocked with a Flutter
+IDE that's written in Flutter.
+
+I won't list all the ways that a Flutter IDE could help Flutter developers, because the core issue
+is actually much deeper than simply building a Flutter IDE with Flutter. Instead, I'll simply
+point out that as long as it's prohibitively difficult to build an IDE with Flutter, you'll never
+truly know the ways in which your life could be made easier as a Flutter developer.
+
+## The big IDE options are all we need
+The big three IDEs are good enough to get us what we've got. But some would also say that they're 
+all we need. The world doesn't need any more IDEs for Dart and Flutter development.
+
+To that statement I ask: Have you heard of Dart Pad?
+
+### What about Dart Pad?
+![](/images/posts/why-flutter-needs-to-be-able-to-build-ides/dartpad.png)
+
+Dart Pad is essentially a minimal IDE for writing Dart and Flutter code. It was created and
+released by Google because the Flutter team believed that the growth of Flutter and Dart
+required the lowest friction accessibility possible. So, obviously the big three weren't
+actually enough. A new requirement appeared, and so a new IDE needed to be built.
+
+Through most of Dart Pad's history leading up to the end of 2023, Dart Pad was written
+with traditional browser technologies: HTML, CSS, JS.
+
+At the end of 2023, Dart Pad was rewritten using Flutter. Thus, not only did the team
+deem it necessary to create a new IDE, but the team eventually realized that it made
+sense to build that IDE with Flutter.
+
+### What about future goals?
+A couple years ago AI was a fringe research focus. Today, AI is the craziest craze our
+industry has seen since the .com era. The AI gold rush requires tools, including places
+to build and experiment with AI, such as Cursor.
+
+![](/images/posts/why-flutter-needs-to-be-able-to-build-ides/cursor.png)
+
+Cursor is an AI-first IDE for writing any kind of code.
+
+In a world where Flutter isn't adequate for building an IDE, all Flutter developers lose
+out on unexpected opportunities, such as the rapid rise of AI.
+
+## Don't fight the last war
+Flutter's limitations in the world of building IDEs is similar to Flutter's limitations
+elsewhere. The Flutter community thinks its OK that Flutter doesn't do X, because most
+developers don't need to build X right now. But this is a losing proposition. This is
+Flutter constantly fighting the last war, instead of preparing for the next war.
+
+We don't know what massive opportunities lay just beyond the horizon. Our best bet to
+prosper in the future as Flutter developers is to ensure today that Flutter is capable
+of painting all pixels, responding to all gestures, and processing all content input.
+I believe that the present difficulty associated with assembling an IDE, or anything like
+an IDE with Flutter, is a signal that Flutter is missing important capabilities, and
+Flutter developers are likely being held back from massive opportunities.
+
+## Filling the IDE hole
+Looking specifically at the limitations around IDE development, there are number of
+holes to fill. Some of these holes can be filled by the community. Other holes need
+to be filled by Flutter, itself.
+
+### Flutter issues
+
+### Community issues

source/posts/you-can-now-generate-static-sites-with-dart.md

@@ -0,0 +1,171 @@
+---
+title: You can now generate static sites with Dart!
+description: With a new package called Static Shock, you can generate your static sites with Dart and Pub.
+publishDate: 2024-06-02
+headerImageUrl: /images/posts/you-can-now-generate-static-sites-with-dart/header.png
+previewImageUrl: /images/posts/you-can-now-generate-static-sites-with-dart/preview.png
+---
+Dart is eating the world. From Flutter user interfaces, to web servers, to CLI tools, and now to
+static websites! [Static Shock](https://staticshock.io) is now available on Pub to help you easily 
+create, generate, and deploy static websites.
+
+<div style="display: block; margin-top: 48px; text-align: center;">
+<iframe 
+  title="Generating static sites with Dart and Static Shock | Flutter Bounty Hunters" 
+  src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kAutI-2Flrs?si=Fhuax0GPyX6gY7AZ" 
+  width="560" 
+  height="315" 
+  style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"
+  frameborder="0" 
+  allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" 
+  referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" 
+  allowfullscreen>
+</iframe>
+</div>
+
+## What is a static website?
+A static website is a website whose content is fully defined at build time. 
+
+Content defined at build time means that your website source directory contains all the articles,
+images, fonts, and styles that are needed by your final website build. But there are a few interesting
+caveats.
+
+Your articles are defined locally, but they don't need to be written in HTML. For example, with Static
+Shock, you can write your articles in Markdown. Static Shock converts that Markdown to HTML for you
+when you run a website build.
+
+Your page layouts are defined locally, but you don't need a different HTML file for every article.
+With Static Shock, you can use Jinja templates to create a single HTML file that can be re-used for
+any number of pages.
+
+Your styles are defined locally, but you're not limited to pure CSS. With Static Shock, you can
+write Sass, a more powerful flavor of CSS, which is compiled down to CSS in your final website
+build.
+
+Your website is built locally, but you're not limited to hard-coded data. With Static Shock, you
+can reach out to internet APIs during the build to obtain data. For example, Static Shock includes
+a GitHub plugin, which can load a list of contributors for a given repository. It also includes a Pub
+plugin which can query the latest version of a given package on Pub.
+
+Static Shock makes it easy to author and compose a static site, with Dart!
+
+## Why use a static site?
+Static sites are inherently limited. Users can't write posts or comments, upload videos or audio, or
+even sign up for an account. So why bother?
+
+Many websites can't be built as static websites. They need user generated and dynamic content. But
+that's certainly not true for all websites. Think about blogs, guide websites, news websites, and
+documentation websites. These websites are all essentially a bundle of articles - and those articles
+exist at the time of publishing.
+
+For websites that *can* exist as a static site, they benefit from choosing to do so.
+
+ * Tiny and quick site downloads.
+ * Rapid rendering with standard browser technology.
+ * No containers, databases, or security rules.
+ * Hosting with a vanilla web server.
+
+Constraining your website to a static website can simplify your job and improve the experience for
+your website visitors.
+
+## What is a static site generator?
+A static site generator is a tool that generates a collection of static files, which are then hosted
+as a website (a static site).
+
+A static site generator is a pipeline of steps. The pipeline takes files and data as input, and then
+generates HTML, CSS, JS, images, and fonts as output. For example, that pipeline might look like the
+following:
+
+ 1. Load Markdown pages.
+ 2. Load images and fonts.
+ 3. Load data (local and remote).
+ 4. Load layouts and components.
+ 5. Render article Markdown to HTML. 
+ 6. Inject article HTML into layout templates.
+ 7. Transpile Sass to CSS.  
+ 8. Write HTML files, CSS files, images, and fonts to final build directory.
+
+Static Shock runs this pipeline for you, and gives you control over what happens in the pipeline
+with Dart code.
+
+## Special Static Shock tools
+Static Shock ships with a few tools that might be of special interest to you.
+
+ * Markdown authoring format.
+ * Jinja template format.
+ * Table-of-Contents generation.
+ * Pub plugin to get the latest version of specified packages.
+ * GitHub plugin to get all the contributors for specified repositories.
+ * RSS plugin to generate an RSS feed.
+ * Project templates for Flutter and Dart package documentation websites.
+
+## Static Shock in the wild
+If you're interested in using Static Shock for your static sites, I'm happy to report that Static
+Shock is generating a number of public sites right now. In fact, this website is generated with
+Static Shock!
+
+ * [Flutter Bounty Hunters Blog](https://blog.flutterbountyhunters.com): This website!
+ * [Flutter Arbiter](https://flutterarbiter.com): Flutter and Dart best practices.
+ * [Static Shock](https://staticshock.io): Package documentation.
+ * [Super Editor](https://supereditor.dev/): Package documentation.
+ * [Flutter Test Robots](https://flutter-bounty-hunters.github.io/flutter_test_robots/): Package documentation.
+ * [Golden Bricks](https://flutter-bounty-hunters.github.io/golden_bricks/): Package documentation.
+
+And many more on the way!
+
+## Getting started with Static Shock
+To get started with Static Shock, the best resource is [staticshock.io](https://staticshock.io).
+But let's take a look at some basic usages.
+
+Static Shock includes a command-line (CLI) tool to generate your initial project, and then also to
+serve your website locally during development. To use the CLI tool, activate it globally:
+
+```shell
+dart pub glocal activate static_shock_cli
+```
+
+You can verify the tool is installed by checking the file path to the executable:
+
+```shell
+which shock
+```
+
+With the CLI tool installed, you can create a project in one of two ways. You can create a
+project with the simplest template:
+
+```shell
+shock create
+```
+
+Or you can create a project based on a documentation website template:
+
+```shell
+shock template docs
+```
+
+Once your project is generated, you can run a website build at any time. Run the following from
+your project directory:
+
+```shell
+shock build
+```
+
+The final built version of the website is available under the `/build` directory.
+
+While you're authoring articles, iterating on layouts, or modifying the Dart pipeline, you can 
+serve your website locally. Run the following from your project directory:
+
+```shell
+shock serve
+```
+
+To learn more about how to use Static Shock, check the [docs](https://staticshock.io).
+
+## Get Involved
+If you discover any bugs, or missing features, please file an issue 
+[on GitHub](https://github.com/flutter-bounty-hunters/static_shock).
+
+If you get a lot of value from Static Shock, please consider [supporting me on GitHub](https://github.com/sponsors/matthew-carroll),
+or consider having your company [support the Flutter Bounty Hunters](https://flutterbountyhunters.com).
+
+We're looking forward to seeing all of your static sites!

source/styles/post.scss

@@ -241,6 +241,13 @@ article {
     font-style: italic;
   }
 
+  img {
+    margin-top: 1em;
+    margin-bottom: 1em;
+
+    width: 100%;
+  }
+
   pre[class*=language-] {
     margin-left: 2em;
     margin-right: 2em;