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Ditching Medium

joshjahans.com

31–40 of 125 posts

Re: Ditching Medium

#31
post #6

On the topic of programming blogs, are there any libraries to automatically detect code snippets within text? I know there are some StackOverflow posts talking about possible approaches to this, but not sure if anyone has actually built an open source solution.

https://highlightjs.org

Re: Ditching Medium

#33
post #6

On the topic of programming blogs, are there any libraries to automatically detect code snippets within text? I know there are some StackOverflow posts talking about possible approaches to this, but not sure if anyone has actually built an open source solution.

https://highlightjs.org

It looks like this highlights code within
 blocks with a color scheme appropriate for the language, but it can't actually detect whether a snippet is code in the first place.

This is good to know about, although I personally care more about just displaying code blocks in a different typeface than I do about highlighting them appropriately.

Re: Ditching Medium

#34

It was never a go to platform for programmers blogs. It’s the worst platform for programming blogs. The way comments work makes it impossible to have kind of coherent conversation. I don’t have an issue with medium for things that don’t involve discussion but for anything that should have discussion. Ahhhhh

Medium is a Ghetto. Who wants to be seen along with thinly sliced salami articles that almost have something to say, desperate content marketers who are writing articles like "Does your API Need a Content Marketing Strategy?" and who are amazed that they got 35 people to view their steaming Turd Emoji? Not me.

It definitely feels like the bloggers on Medium are considerably more self-indulgent and considerably less intelligent.

Re: Ditching Medium

#35
post #32

So we are back to running our own blogs again? What are the alternatives to Medium if you don’t want to self-host? Ghost?

https://svbtle.com/

$72 a year is a lot of money. [1]

The thing that made Medium special was that anyone could post about something that mattered to them and get noticed no matter their background.

WordPress, Blogger, and other free things cost energy in place of money because they're top-heavy with features and weak accessibility. That's as much a blocker as a recurring charge.

[1] "But it's $70 if you pay the full year!"

That's not much of a deal for someone who's already wary about trusting a company with a direct line to cause a cascade of overdraft feeds.

Re: Ditching Medium

#36

Either I or the Author are confused about how Medium works. > A blog, to me, was a place for someone to put their thoughts up onto the internet and have anyone who wanted to come and read - for free. But you can still do this, no? You can write articles on Medium that can be read for free. > Medium relies on user-submitted content and then charges those same users for access to their content. My experience is that Me…

My impression is that the author is referring to the handful of free premium articles Medium allows you to see per month without having a subscription.

Re: Ditching Medium

#37

So we are back to running our own blogs again? What are the alternatives to Medium if you don’t want to self-host? Ghost?

FWIW you can trivially self-host Ghost these days with an official one-click droplet on DigitalOcean.

https://www.digitalocean.com/products/one-click-apps/ghost/

https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/one-clicks/ghost/

Re: Ditching Medium

#38

So we are back to running our own blogs again? What are the alternatives to Medium if you don’t want to self-host? Ghost?

Several YC-affiliated people (Sam Altman, Jessica Livingston, etc.) use Posthaven.

Thanks. This seems to be the best platform.

Re: Ditching Medium

#40
post #35
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://svbtle.com/

$72 a year is a lot of money. [1] The thing that made Medium special was that anyone could post about something that mattered to them and get noticed no matter their background. WordPress, Blogger, and other free things cost energy in place of money because they're top-heavy with features and weak accessibility. That's as much a blocker as a recurring charge. [1] "But it's $70 if you pay the full year!" That's not mu…

$72 a year is not a lot of money. If you got a $1.00 coffee every other day from McDonald's it would be twice that.

The main reason why the web is such a sight for sore eyes in 2019 is that people seem to think $72 a year is a lot for having a voice. People can find 10x that for a new iPhone or spend that much on beer in a month or on a cable subscription but having a blog sure can't be worth much to most people.

For one thing, how much do they think their time is worth? That is 10 hours of time spent writing at around minimum wage in the U.S.

I don't get it. On the other hand, I don't understand how grandmothers spend $5 on acrylic yarn when they could spend $10 to make a (better) wool scarf that they'll spend 20 hours knitting. (e.g. the wool scarf will protect you in a fire, the acrylic scarf will melt, burn you, and produce toxic fumes.)

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