The Jigsaw Challenge

Published on February 10th, 2022

I gave a talk about Learning in Public during the Laracon Online Summer 2021, and it went well. Laracon Online is a big deal; it is the Laravel online conference (in fact, it is the only Laracon conference at the moment since all the in-person ones got postponed), so when I got great feedback, I thought to myself, " Wow, I'd love to do that again!"

I also thought I'd step up the pressure and try some live coding next time. And not only did I decide to live code, but I also set a challenge to install, customise and deploy a Jigsaw website in 10 minutes. Because why not? I just love to punish myself!

#TL;DR

I managed to do it in 7m21s.

The longer version

Jigsaw is a PHP-based static site generator built and maintained by Tighten. It is the #1 PHP SSG based on the number of GitHub stars, so it's fair to say it's pretty good! I've built many Jigsaw websites over time, and I also created a course about Jigsaw for LinkedIn Learning, so I guess I'm a fan 😎. I wanted to showcase how easy it is to get a Jigsaw website up and running, not only locally but for the whole world to see using Netlify! The challenge was a great success, I managed to keep it together and finish with plenty of time to spare. I will definitely consider doing a similar challenge again in the future because the adrenaline was worth it 🤓, regardless of what I said at the end of the talk.

Here is the recording of the talk. If you have a question about Jigsaw, ping me on Twitter or email me! I'd love to hear from you.

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