Using modern HTML and CSS will get you pretty far these days.
For example, dealing with forms used to be problematic in a few different ways without JavaScript or something server-side.
Now form validation can be done with CSS [1].
For example, static site hosts like Netlify have services for dealing with the form data [2]. 100 free form submissions per month.
I agree that tooling is out of control. Jekyll [3] is great for getting started with building static sites. When using Jekyll, my build tool of choice is a Makefile [4].
Using modern HTML and CSS will get you pretty far these days.
For example, dealing with forms used to be problematic in a few different ways without JavaScript or something server-side.
Now form validation can be done with CSS [1].
For example, static site hosts like Netlify have services for dealing with the form data [2]. 100 free form submissions per month.
I agree that tooling is out of control. Jekyll [3] is great for getting started with building static sites. When using Jekyll, my build tool of choice is a Makefile [4].
[1]: https://webkit.org/blog/13096/css-has-pseudo-class/#styling-...
[2]: https://www.netlify.com/products/forms/
[3]: https://jekyllrb.com/
[4]: https://blog.mads-hartmann.com/2016/08/20/make.html