Top 3 things I learned when implementing Edge Delivery

December 2024

Deciding to rebuild my old website with Edge Delivery was driven by the urge to confront real-world challenges head-on. While starting off with a boilerplate is useful, diving into the practical implementation of a unique design reveals the true hurdles. Here’s what I learned along the way:

Autoblocks Are Invaluable: The page layout wasn’t too complicated, yet the simplicity and speed at which I could create tables and refresh content using autoblocks were game-changers. These tools proved to be incredibly efficient for quick updates and modifications.

A New Appreciation for Tables: Having avoided tables for years, I’ve now recognized their worth. Tables provide a clear and defined structure for content placement, a more reliable method than guessing the sequence of content chunks. Perhaps my comfort with the intuitive drag-and-drop nature of AEM has made me a bit complacent, but I’ve come to see the utility of tables in organizing content effectively.

Smooth CDN Integration: Incorporating my existing CDN into the project was more straightforward than anticipated, thanks to well-documented guidance. This allowed me to cache my pages effectively, although the process for clearing the cache wasn’t flawless. During periods of rapid iteration and adjustments, I found myself manually purging the cache through my CDN’s interface to ensure updates were applied correctly.

Does my Edge Delivery site mirror my personal site exactly? Not quite. The original utilized an older version of VueJS and featured experiments with lazy loading as users scrolled. I scaled back on many of these elements to focus squarely on mastering Edge Delivery and spotting potential snags. I’m look forward to delving deeper into experimentation and exploring the full capabilities of Edge Delivery.

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