Merge pull request #161 from cu-mkp/issue160

#160: NJR additional revisions

docs/about/digital.md

@@ -1,8 +1,9 @@
 Digital Development
 ======
 
-As a digital scholarly publication, _Secrets of Craft and Nature in Renaissance France. A Digital Critical Edition and English Translation of BnF Ms. Fr. 640_ aims to make all online content openly and sustainably available. The creation of the Edition by the Making and Knowing Project has involved evolving approaches and methodologies to facilitate the multifaceted collaborative research process. At the same time, the digital development of the Edition has prioritized the generation and preservation of all Project data in sustainable, open formats to ensure commitment to open-access and open-source standards wherever possible. This focus on sustainability is guided by the principles of [minimal computing](https://go-dh.github.io/mincomp/about/) which emphasize durability and the use of basic technologies and workflows that have a greater likelihood of persisting. Development decisions and the creation of static applications have prioritized the minimization of server-side technology in order to reduce maintenance overhead, security risks, and exposure to technological obsolescence. 
+As a digital scholarly publication, _Secrets of Craft and Nature in Renaissance France. A Digital Critical Edition and English Translation of BnF Ms. Fr. 640_ aims to make all online content openly and sustainably available. The creation of the Edition by the Making and Knowing Project has involved evolving approaches and methodologies to facilitate the multifaceted collaborative research process. At the same time, the digital development of the Edition has prioritized the generation and preservation of all Project data in sustainable, open formats to ensure adherence to open-access and open-source standards wherever possible. This commitment is founded on the conviction that the Edition should serve as a resource to a wide and diverse audience, enabling knowledge exchange now and into the future.
 
+The focus on sustainability is guided by the principles of [minimal computing](https://go-dh.github.io/mincomp/about/) M
 The Edition relies upon a common and well-established technology stack: HTML/HTML5 with CSS and JavaScript served statically through a Columbia Libraries webserver. Until the Edition is archived for long-term preservation, infrastructure and content assets are developed and maintained using Apache HTTP Server, React JavaScript Library, Github, AWS CloudFront and S3, and DigitalOcean virtual servers. Data format and storage decisions are chosen for their ability to be readily transformed to multiple target formats, and content is routinely exported and converted to open standard formats.
 
 The component parts of the Edition are detailed further below. For more information, please also see [About the Edition](/#content/about/creation) and the essays by Terry Catapano and Naomi Rosenkranz, [BnF Ms. Fr. 640 as a Digital Text](/#essays/ann_310_ie_19) and Pamela H. Smith, [Making the Edition of Ms. Fr. 640](/#essays/ann_329_ie_19).
@@ -104,9 +105,12 @@ For persistent access, each essay has been assigned a Digital Object Identifier
 Static Site Generation
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-In a typical website with a content management system, content is kept in a database and rendered into HTML when requested. With static site generation, pages are created beforehand. The content is already in its final form and can be sent as-is to the user.
+Most websites are typically created using a content management system (CMS) in which the site's content is kept in a database and rendered into HTML when requested. This approach often requires the employment of proprietary software as well as a large number of resources, institutional support, or constant maintenance. 
+
+Static site generation, unlike CMS projects, allows websites to be created with significantly fewer dependencies and the minimization of technological obsolescence. With static site generation, content is already in its final form (as pages are created beforehand) and can be sent as-is to the user.
+
+Static site generation thus offers a number of advantages. It allows individualized software decisions and better control and maintenance of the site. Furthermore, open-source web servers like Apache and Nginx can very efficiently serve large amounts of static data, responding very well with increased user traffic. This leads to lower server costs. Because the technology is so fundemental to the web, techniques for serving static sites are likely to work well into the future and be universally understood by IT professionals tasked with keeping the assets online.
 
-Static site generation has a number of advantages. One is that it responds very well with increased user traffic. Open source web servers like Apache and Nginx can very efficiently serve large amounts of static data. This leads to lower server costs. Because the technology is so fundamental to the web, techniques for serving static sites are likely to work well into the future and be universally understood by IT professionals tasked with keeping the assets online.
 
 The biggest challenge in developing a website using this approach is that one needs to adopt or build an appropriate static site generator for the project. There are a number of existing projects in this space. Jekyll is the most well known. _Secrets of Craft and Nature_ is built using the Ruby programming language.