A Simple Rename
Nick decided to rename the London event from "AI Day" to "AI Weekend." The event grew from a single day to two days, so the name needed to match. It sounded like a quick change. Find the old name, replace it with the new one.
It was not quick.
Where a Name Lives
The event name appears in the page title. In the meta description. In the Open Graph tags that control how the link looks when shared on social media. In the hero section headline. In the body copy, multiple times. In the workshop index page that lists all upcoming events. In the homepage section that promotes the next workshop. In the navigation, if it appears there. In the footer, if it appears there.
Each of those is a separate place in the HTML where the old string existed. Some of them used the exact phrase "AI Day London." Some used just "AI Day." Some said "our London AI Day." Each variation needed to be found and updated to read naturally with the new name.
The Ripple
A static site does not have a database where you change a value once and it propagates everywhere. Each page is its own file. The partials system helps with shared elements like the nav and footer, but the content inside each page is unique. So a name change means opening every file that references the event and editing it by hand.
This is the tradeoff of a simple build system. No database means no single source of truth for content. But it also means no database to maintain, no migrations to run, no cache to invalidate. You just edit the files and rebuild.
The Lesson
Names are not stored in one place. They scatter across a project the moment you use them. The more successful a thing is, the more places its name appears, and the more work it takes to change.
The rename took longer than expected. But the site rebuilt in under a second, and every page now says "AI Weekend London." That part was fast.
