JAMstack, say what?

Publishing blazing fast and secure websites has never been easier or so inexpensive (a.k.a. free). Let’s set WordPress aside and dive into the world of Headless CMS and statically built sites! This workshop should be accessible to all, but experience with npm, CMS structures, React, Gatsby, Netlify deployment will help! In this dojo you will get a brief introduction on these new technologies and what do they do. Then you will dive into a hands activity, seeing how far you can get into:

Creating a new Gatsby project
Setting up Contentful to create headless CMS data models and content
Linking Contentful to Gatsby to fetch your Contentful data and display it on your website
Using Gatsby’s GraphQL playground to test queries
Deploying your Gatsby site to Netlify
Connecting Contentful to Netlify to trigger builds when your data changes

It may be a tall order, but definitely possible, to achieve all this in an hour. Whatever you don’t finish in the dojo will be available in tutorial format to finish at home. Bring your computer, bring a friend and let’s build some websites!
Current URLs (may be updated before talk):

Intro Presentation: https://gallant-shaw-8bc321.netlify.com/#/
Tutorial: https://github.com/micleners/gatsby-contentful

About the Speaker

Michael Leners is a software developer who transitioned from a career in science and engineering. Michael enjoys fun and games, but gets the biggest thrill in life from collaborative learning and teaching. He is an advocate for minorities in STEM and loves to dance. Originally from just outside of Seattle, Mike moved to Iowa for graduate school where he did research on photonic sensors, after studying bacteria as an undergrad. He taught physics at Grand View University before transitioning to web development. The tech stack for this presentation is inspired by the development process he learned while working at IMT Group’s Computer Service Dev Team. While enjoying the tech and team at IMT, he has chosen to pursue other adventures with Source Allies.

About the Sponsor

Special thanks to Pillar, a part of Industry X.0, for providing the venue, food, and drinks. Pillar is a technology consulting powerhouse rooted in extreme programming and flourishing in rock-solid code, design thinking and marketing. They breathe life into big ideas, delivering industry-disrupting opportunities at lightning speed. Learn more at https://pillartechnology.com/.