--- title: Writing First, Tooling Second | daily.dev description: Start publishing content on your personal website immediately using plain HTML rather than spending time selecting blogging engines, static site generators, or... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/writing-first-tooling-second-jfgmnpkre twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Writing First, Tooling Second | daily.dev og:description: Start publishing content on your personal website immediately using plain HTML rather than spending time selecting blogging engines, static site generators, or... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/writing-first-tooling-second-jfgmnpkre og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/JFGmnPkre.png og:image:alt: Writing First, Tooling Second og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Writing First, Tooling Second **[Lobsters](https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters)** · 5 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Start publishing content on your personal website immediately using plain HTML rather than spending time selecting blogging engines, static site generators, or templating systems. The author's own website began as simple HTML files in Notepad and evolved tooling only after years of publishing. Content and ideas are the essence of a website; sophisticated tooling is optional and should come later, after you've published at least five articles. A simple collection of HTML pages that exists and shares your thoughts is more valuable than a perfectly engineered site with no content. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [How to Make a Damn Website](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-make-a-damn-website-tqo9k91ej) · Lobsters · 2 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#webdev](https://daily.dev/tags/webdev), [#html](https://daily.dev/tags/html), [#markdown](https://daily.dev/tags/markdown) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/writing-first-tooling-second-jfgmnpkre) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Writing First, Tooling Second","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/writing-first-tooling-second-jfgmnpkre","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/writing-first-tooling-second-jfgmnpkre"},"datePublished":"2026-01-19T15:36:38.967Z","dateModified":"2026-01-19T15:37:03.049Z","description":"Start publishing content on your personal website immediately using plain HTML rather than spending time selecting blogging engines, static site generators, or...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/2cba3f49d515b826577ae03f52d4a543?_a=AQAEulh","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/2cba3f49d515b826577ae03f52d4a543?_a=AQAEulh","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Lobsters","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Lobsters","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--tl8v_Fku--/f_auto,t_logo/v1698841318/logos/lobste.jpg","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/writing-first-tooling-second-jfgmnpkre","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"webdev,html,markdown","timeRequired":"PT5M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Lobsters","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Writing First, Tooling Second"}]} ```