My Long Journey to a Decoupled WordPress Gatsby Site

From science labs to web design: a biologist's unexpected path. My scientific background instilled a deep curiosity, a trait that led me from microscopes and petri dishes to the fascinating world of web development. I initially learned HTML amidst centrifuging samples and freezing experiments, using tools like HomeSite and Dreamweaver. A decade ago, WordPress entered my life, transforming a hobby into a full-time passion.

My WordPress Journey: Theme Development and Beyond

A self-proclaimed WordPress enthusiast, my initial foray involved theme hacking, heavily relying on Morten Rand-Hendriksen's "Building Themes from Scratch Using Underscores." This tutorial, along with Morten's GitHub repository, became invaluable resources. I created custom themes (Kuhn, Popper, etc.) for my personal, search-engine-unfriendly archives, inspired by Sara Soueidan's "Just Write" philosophy of meticulous documentation. While I also dabbled in plugin and widget development, my focus remained primarily on theming.

The JavaScript Imperative and the Rise of Gatsby

Matt Mullenweg's 2015 call for deeper JavaScript proficiency, coupled with the Gutenberg editor's announcement, marked a turning point. Recognizing JavaScript's importance, I embarked on a learning journey guided by Zell Liew's "Learning JavaScript — where should you start and what to do when you’re stuck?".

Exploring Early React and REST API-Based Themes

The emergence of React-based WordPress themes, such as Foxhound, Picard, and Celestial, initially piqued my interest. However, these seemed experimental, and my limited JavaScript/React knowledge hindered deeper exploration.

Embracing React and Discovering Gatsby

Using Robin Wieruch's "JavaScript fundamentals before learning React" as a roadmap, I tackled React. The simplicity of Gatsby's routing, utilizing @reach/router, proved a game-changer. Gatsby's speed and efficiency, as described in its marketing materials, further solidified my decision to focus on it. I diligently worked through Gatsby's tutorials and leveraged resources like Justin Formentin's "Guide to Building a Gatsby Site From the Ground Up" and Reactgo's "Build an advanced blog using Gatsby and React" to build my skills. I opted for Sass styling due to its familiarity and readability, though I acknowledge the merits of CSS modules.

Integrating Gatsby and WordPress: Resources and Challenges

Numerous Gatsby-powered sites highlight its performance and security advantages. However, integrating with WordPress presented challenges. Comment handling, a native WordPress feature, required alternative solutions like Disqus, as detailed in the Northstack tutorial.

Gatsby Themes and Plugins

My exploration included various WordPress-inspired Gatsby themes (Tabor, Gatsby Theme WordPress Starter, WordPress Source Theme) and the Gatsby WP Themes project. While promising, many themes lacked beginner-friendly documentation. I also investigated experimental plugins like Gatsby Source WordPress Experimental and Gatsby WordPress Gutenberg, both still under development.

Essential Guides

Mohammad Mohsin's Smashing Magazine articles on building React themes and porting Twenty Nineteen to Gatsby proved invaluable. Henrik Wirth's comprehensive seven-part guide on porting a WordPress site to Gatsby using WPGraphQL was also extremely helpful, as was Jason Longstorf's tutorial on migrating to the Jamstack (based on his Learn With Jason podcast).

My Partially Ported Gatsby Site and Future Directions

The culmination of this journey is my own partially ported WordPress Gatsby site (a detailed walkthrough will be published next week). I'm closely monitoring the development of the experimental WordPress plugins, hoping for their official release. The ongoing evolution of the WordPress block editor, WPGraphQL, and Gatsby source plugins presents both exciting possibilities and ongoing challenges.

Final Thoughts

Currently, Gatsby WordPress themes aren't fully mature for beginners. While the decoupled approach offers significant advantages for larger projects, for my personal needs, a standard Gatsby site with Markdown content remains sufficient. The future of Gatsby and WordPress integration is promising, but current limitations necessitate careful consideration. Stay tuned for my detailed tutorial next week!

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