Why someone would do this: Wordpress has a solid editor, lots of plugins, and is used by millions so the workflow is well tested. The resulting pages are a perfect fit as static content.
You can accomplish this by using a CDN that caches everything, or use plugins that export static files like WP2Static, or use integrations with static site frameworks like Gatsby that treat WP as a CMS.
But yes, doing it all from scratch yourself is probably not worth it, especially if you're unfamiliar with the tech.
>Why someone would do this: Wordpress has a solid editor, lots of plugins, and is used by millions so the workflow is well tested.
Sure - why not. The question, why do you need to host it locally? You can just create a free account on wordpress.com, or get a private hosted solution for peanuts and with the LAMP stack already configured.
But to be fair, the authors core point is correct - running Wordpress locally and then deploying to the internet is an absolute tire-fire.
For context my wife uses wordpress to build various sites. I got lumped with the task of moving this online. It was super painful, as WP encodes the URL name (i.e. localhost) flipping everywhere.
I eventually resolved this by editing the tables which stored the URLS (fortunately, as a DS I know SQL) and doing some sed on various files that cached the URL.
I now refuse to do this, and set her up online with a website before she does any work, because moving it is so painful.
You can accomplish this by using a CDN that caches everything, or use plugins that export static files like WP2Static, or use integrations with static site frameworks like Gatsby that treat WP as a CMS.
But yes, doing it all from scratch yourself is probably not worth it, especially if you're unfamiliar with the tech.