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Ponzu – An open-source HTTP server framework and CMS in Go

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11–20 of 43 posts

Re: Ponzu – An open-source HTTP server framework and CMS in Go

#11

Kudos to the creators for getting the CMS field definitions right by allowing arbitrary amounts and types of fields! It's so annoying to me that so many CMS's and static site generators start out with the assumption of 1 big rich text / markdown "body" for content and treat everything else on the page as miscellaneous stuff (meta-fields, yaml front-matter, etc).

Sorry, I've never used a CMS or managed a blog... but I'm curious about the use case and benefits of having arbitrary fields.

Is it for meta information about a post? Are those fields injected into a post somehow? How are those fields used? (I'm ignorant of CMSs)

Re: Ponzu – An open-source HTTP server framework and CMS in Go

#12
post #8

Couldn't see any authentication system in Readme, Is there any auth mechanism that can be used for API usage?

According to the README it depends on golang.org/x/crypto/bcrypt and github.com/nilslice/jwt so it seems likely to have authentication on board and a way of using JWT tokens for API access.

Re: Ponzu – An open-source HTTP server framework and CMS in Go

#13

Kudos to the creators for getting the CMS field definitions right by allowing arbitrary amounts and types of fields! It's so annoying to me that so many CMS's and static site generators start out with the assumption of 1 big rich text / markdown "body" for content and treat everything else on the page as miscellaneous stuff (meta-fields, yaml front-matter, etc).

Sorry, I've never used a CMS or managed a blog... but I'm curious about the use case and benefits of having arbitrary fields. Is it for meta information about a post? Are those fields injected into a post somehow? How are those fields used? (I'm ignorant of CMSs)

Imagine the case of a generic news article: the body of the post can contain text, photos, pull quotes, videos, a slideshow, audio content, etc. The CMS needs to enable users to add all of that content and expose via the API to multiple clients (web, mobile, feeds, etc).

Re: Ponzu – An open-source HTTP server framework and CMS in Go

#14
Looks spiffy. I like the approach of keeping even the database as part of the application. I think it makes projects a lot more like appliances, which can really be more plug-and-play. I see a lot of databases moving towards the application layer (CouchDB, Firebase), but it's interesting to see applications going the other way.

Lastly, here's to the hope of an exploit named "Pwnzu" never getting released! It's simply too good of a name.

Re: Ponzu – An open-source HTTP server framework and CMS in Go

#15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I've never used a CMS or managed a blog... but I'm curious about the use case and benefits of having arbitrary fields. Is it for meta information about a post? Are those fields injected into a post somehow? How are those fields used? (I'm ignorant of CMSs)

Imagine the case of a generic news article: the body of the post can contain text, photos, pull quotes, videos, a slideshow, audio content, etc. The CMS needs to enable users to add all of that content and expose via the API to multiple clients (web, mobile, feeds, etc).

I always thought that fields are generally poor for that - html is pretty good and has ways to structure all those things, and they can be extracted and styled for different clients.

Re: Ponzu – An open-source HTTP server framework and CMS in Go

#16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine the case of a generic news article: the body of the post can contain text, photos, pull quotes, videos, a slideshow, audio content, etc. The CMS needs to enable users to add all of that content and expose via the API to multiple clients (web, mobile, feeds, etc).

I always thought that fields are generally poor for that - html is pretty good and has ways to structure all those things, and they can be extracted and styled for different clients.

HTML as a data entry format is error prone, and HTML as a cross-platform data source requires a lot of tooling and unreliability compared with a properly-structured field-driven JSON API

Re: Ponzu – An open-source HTTP server framework and CMS in Go

#17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine the case of a generic news article: the body of the post can contain text, photos, pull quotes, videos, a slideshow, audio content, etc. The CMS needs to enable users to add all of that content and expose via the API to multiple clients (web, mobile, feeds, etc).

I always thought that fields are generally poor for that - html is pretty good and has ways to structure all those things, and they can be extracted and styled for different clients.

You can still do that with most field oriented CMS packages. The field interface is generally admin facing only.

The user facing html templates have variables that map back to those fields. So, all the expression of HTML, but with the actual data in fields.

Handy for things like addresses. You can render a map or just text, or both. The fact that it's structured data would allow for proximity searching. Where each "post" is say, a restaurant location.

Similar for things like tags, so that you have built in taxonomy. Separate spaces for tags too, so that you could have a topic taxonomy as well as a completely separate taxonomy that doesn't pollute that space. Like an author taxonomy or similar.

Re: Ponzu – An open-source HTTP server framework and CMS in Go

#18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought that fields are generally poor for that - html is pretty good and has ways to structure all those things, and they can be extracted and styled for different clients.

HTML as a data entry format is error prone, and HTML as a cross-platform data source requires a lot of tooling and unreliability compared with a properly-structured field-driven JSON API

If you have the luxury of convincing your users to learn markdown instead of structured fields you'll have a far simpler and extendable solution.

Obviously rarely the case, but worth having the conversation.

Re: Ponzu – An open-source HTTP server framework and CMS in Go

#19
post #5

Boltdb sounds neat, but I swear no off-the-shelf tooling supports it.

I was apprehensive about BoltDB too, at first, but after giving it a shot I've really taken to it and come to appreciate the reliability and flexibility it offers. It's not well-suited for all cases, just those where dropping in high-performance transactional persistence into an app meets your needs.

As it keeps gaining traction and popularity, more and better tooling will inevitably be created to scratch itches :)

Re: Ponzu – An open-source HTTP server framework and CMS in Go

#20
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought that fields are generally poor for that - html is pretty good and has ways to structure all those things, and they can be extracted and styled for different clients.

You can still do that with most field oriented CMS packages. The field interface is generally admin facing only. The user facing html templates have variables that map back to those fields. So, all the expression of HTML, but with the actual data in fields. Handy for things like addresses. You can render a map or just text, or both. The fact that it's structured data would allow for proximity searching. Where each "p…

It generally limits you though, eg one video per article etc.
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