<p>Okay so here's the thing about Next.js that honestly blew my mind when I first discovered it: you can have your cake and eat it too.</p>
<p>Dynamic routing and static generation sound like they should be opposites, right? One is all about flexibility (generate pages on the fly!) and the other is about performance (pre-build everything!). But Next.js said "why not both?" and honestly, it's kind of genius.</p>
<h2>Dynamic Routing</h2>
<p>Let me paint you a picture. You're building a blog (like this one). You've got hundreds of posts. Are you really going to create a separate file for each one? <code>post-1.tsx</code>, <code>post-2.tsx</code>, <code>post-3.tsx</code>... No. That's insane.</p>
<p>Instead, you create one file called <code>[slug].tsx</code> and Next.js figures out the rest. That bracket notation is basically saying "hey, this part of the URL can be anything." So <code>/posts/my-first-post</code> and <code>/posts/why-i-love-coffee</code> both use the same template.</p>
<p>The slug becomes a parameter you can grab and use to fetch the right content. Simple, elegant, and it scales to a million posts without you creating a million files.</p>
<h2>Static Generation</h2>
<p>Now here's where it gets good. Static generation means your pages get built at compile time, not when someone visits. The HTML is ready and waiting. No server processing, no database calls, just pure speed.</p>
<p>When someone lands on your page, they get the HTML instantly. It's already rendered. Combined with client side navigation, it feels like magic. Pages load before you even finish clicking.</p>
<h2>The Combo</h2>
<p>The real power move is combining these two. With <code>getStaticPaths</code> and <code>getStaticProps</code>, you tell Next.js "here are all my dynamic routes" and "here's how to fetch data for each one." At build time, Next.js generates static HTML for every single page.</p>
<p>So you get the flexibility of dynamic routing AND the performance of static sites. Thousands of unique pages, all built ahead of time, all blazing fast.</p>
<p>This is honestly the stuff that made me fall in love with Next.js. It just makes sense. More on the nitty gritty implementation details in future posts.</p>
