Behind the Scenes: The Tech Stack Powering This Site
As someone who has spent over two decades working with data and technology in healthcare, I appreciate tools that are fast, reliable, and get out of the way. When it came time to build this personal site, I wanted something that embodied those same principles. Here's a look at the technology choices behind dougwhitehead.com.
Hugo: The Engine
This site is built with Hugo, a static site generator written in Go. If you're not familiar with static site generators, they're tools that take your content (usually written in Markdown) and templates, and generate a complete website of plain HTML files. No databases, no server-side processing—just fast, cacheable HTML.
Why Hugo? Speed. Hugo can build thousands of pages in milliseconds. For a personal site like this, that's overkill, but it means the build process is essentially instantaneous. Write a post, run the build command, and your site is ready to deploy—usually in under 100 milliseconds.
The flexibility is another win. Hugo's templating system is powerful enough to handle complex site structures while remaining straightforward for simple sites. It has built-in support for RSS feeds, sitemaps, and taxonomies (like tags and categories), which means less manual configuration.
A Minimalist Approach to Design
You might notice this site loads almost instantly. That's not an accident. The entire CSS is inlined in the HTML—no separate stylesheet to fetch. The styles are minified and weigh in at just a few kilobytes. There are no web fonts to download; the site uses your system's native fonts, which means it looks right at home on macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android.
This approach, sometimes called "intrinsic web design," prioritizes performance and accessibility over elaborate styling. Every byte counts when you're optimizing for speed, and eliminating external dependencies means fewer things that can go wrong.
The design uses semantic HTML5 with proper heading hierarchy and ARIA attributes. There's a skip link for keyboard navigation, and the color contrast ratios meet WCAG guidelines. These might seem like small details, but they ensure the site works well for everyone, regardless of how they access it.
Hosting on Opalstack
The site is hosted on Opalstack, a managed hosting platform that gives you the power of a VPS with the convenience of managed hosting. What I appreciate about Opalstack is that it's developer-friendly without being overwhelming. You get SSH access, a clean control panel, and a well-documented REST API for automation.
For a static site like this, the hosting requirements are minimal. Hugo generates plain HTML files, which means any web server can serve them efficiently. Opalstack handles the Nginx configuration, SSL certificates (via Let's Encrypt), and the infrastructure, so I can focus on content rather than server management.
Feeds and Syndication
The site provides both Atom and JSON feeds for syndication. If you're using an RSS reader (and if you're not, you should consider it—they're a great way to curate your information diet), you can subscribe to get updates whenever I publish something new. Hugo generates these feeds automatically from the same content source, ensuring consistency.
Structured Data for Discoverability
Each page includes JSON-LD structured data, which helps search engines understand the content better. For blog posts, this includes the publication date, author information, and article metadata. For the homepage, it identifies the site type and provides context about its purpose. This kind of semantic markup is invisible to visitors but can improve how the site appears in search results.
The Philosophy
The underlying philosophy here is simple: do one thing well. Static sites are excellent for content that doesn't change frequently. They're secure (no server-side code means no server-side vulnerabilities), fast (just plain HTML), and resilient (the entire site can be served from a CDN if needed).
In healthcare analytics, we often talk about choosing the right tool for the job. The same principle applies to web development. For a personal blog and professional portfolio, a static site generator is the right tool. It's maintainable, performant, and reliable—qualities that matter whether you're building a website or a healthcare data pipeline.
What's Next
This setup provides a solid foundation for writing about healthcare analytics, data science, and the intersection of technology and healthcare policy. The infrastructure is in place, the build process is smooth, and the site is fast. Now the real work begins: creating content that's worth reading.
If you're interested in building something similar, both Hugo and Opalstack have excellent documentation to get you started. The code for the site is straightforward HTML, CSS, and Hugo templates—nothing exotic. Sometimes the best technology is the boring technology that just works.
Have questions about the setup or want to discuss static site generators? Feel free to reach out via the contact information on my about page.