I understand that you feel so, but I found Hugo to be logical and straight forward.
Jekyll, OTOH, needed me to install umpteen things. Note: C++ developer here, never had to use Ruby directly for anything. I write my articles on-the-fly on different laptops, during flight, etc. So having `git` and `hugo` alone in the terminal and Emacs is good enough for me. Hugo also runs a local server which updates Firefox on every save.
I'm also a C++ dev an I'm envious of how clean your site design is. Do you have any insight you can share on how you approached the frontend design? I find myself constantly fiddling with the CSS and I feel like I could fiddle around with it forever and still not be happy.
> I find myself constantly fiddling with the CSS and I feel like I could fiddle around with it forever and still not be happy.
I'm afraid I'm guilty of this too; countless hours of yak shaving [0] the stylesheet :( However, one thing I consciously avoid: not being happy. Every session, at close, I make peace with the existing styles and tell the perfectionist in me that it'll never be perfect but will eventually get close. For that session I'll make possible changes and write the rest on my mind in TODO. My original site was just a copy of Ghostwriter theme[1] and small incremental updates eventually led to what you saw.
I agree on not recommending Hugo, I spent way too much time on it without being able to figure it out. I now use Lektor, it's simple and very flexible.
Another +1 for Lektor. I use both Lektor and Hugo to run a few static sites and have come to dread updating the Hugo ones, while the Lektor model just seems to fit better with the way I think.
- Confusing architecture
- Steep learning curve
I recommend Jekyll more than anything else. It is simple, beautiful and straight forward. Easy.