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HTMLy: Databaseless Blogging Platform (Flat-File Blog)

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Re: HTMLy: Databaseless Blogging Platform (Flat-File Blog)

#3

Don't take this the wrong way, but why PHP?

Presumably because of how many webhosts have it available automatically.

I'd pondered a flat file based php 'blog' engine once - with all the benefits of markdown or whatever - no database complexity, easily rsyncable for deployment, git can keep revisions, etc...

Re: HTMLy: Databaseless Blogging Platform (Flat-File Blog)

#4

Don't take this the wrong way, but why PHP?

Presumably because of how many webhosts have it available automatically. I'd pondered a flat file based php 'blog' engine once - with all the benefits of markdown or whatever - no database complexity, easily rsyncable for deployment, git can keep revisions, etc...

Sure makes sense. I asked because I always see post about Jekyll and octopress, and such. That are basically server-less.

Re: HTMLy: Databaseless Blogging Platform (Flat-File Blog)

#5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably because of how many webhosts have it available automatically. I'd pondered a flat file based php 'blog' engine once - with all the benefits of markdown or whatever - no database complexity, easily rsyncable for deployment, git can keep revisions, etc...

Sure makes sense. I asked because I always see post about Jekyll and octopress, and such. That are basically server-less.

Yep - and there's also some benefits performance and security wise to not having any serverside code at all (other than nginx, or whatever).

The problems you have with jekyll, pelican, et al is that you lose site-side search, 'related posts' (without some reasonably complex compile-side clobber), etc. etc.

Using extremely minimal PHP lets you deploy just as easily, you don't get too much of a performance hit (a hell of a lot better than wordpress, etc), you can still do search, related posts, forms, embedding, and all that.

PHP as a server-side 'clever templating' language really isn't that bad. It's only awful when used to build anything massivly complex (such as joomla! or drupal...), and that it encourages messy project design.

Re: HTMLy: Databaseless Blogging Platform (Flat-File Blog)

#6

Don't take this the wrong way, but why PHP?

Outside of "the bubble" the web is basically made of php and perl. Its like the dark matter of the internet. If you want to reach all they way down to the weekend dabbler, you really need to choose one of those 2, and of those 2, php seems more immediately accessible.

Re: HTMLy: Databaseless Blogging Platform (Flat-File Blog)

#7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure makes sense. I asked because I always see post about Jekyll and octopress, and such. That are basically server-less.

Yep - and there's also some benefits performance and security wise to not having any serverside code at all (other than nginx, or whatever). The problems you have with jekyll, pelican, et al is that you lose site-side search, 'related posts' (without some reasonably complex compile-side clobber), etc. etc. Using extremely minimal PHP lets you deploy just as easily, you don't get too much of a performance hit (a hell…

> It's only awful when used to build anything massivly complex (such as joomla! or drupal...)

Or a Bitcoin exchange

Re: HTMLy: Databaseless Blogging Platform (Flat-File Blog)

#8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure makes sense. I asked because I always see post about Jekyll and octopress, and such. That are basically server-less.

Yep - and there's also some benefits performance and security wise to not having any serverside code at all (other than nginx, or whatever). The problems you have with jekyll, pelican, et al is that you lose site-side search, 'related posts' (without some reasonably complex compile-side clobber), etc. etc. Using extremely minimal PHP lets you deploy just as easily, you don't get too much of a performance hit (a hell…

> PHP as a server-side 'clever templating' language really isn't that bad.

I only touch PHP as little as possible, and work with a legacy PHP codebase, but AFAIK, it hasn't evolved a tag to automatically HTML-escape/JSON-escape content. So, it's as good a templating language as it is a programming language: pretty terrible. I'll trade PHP for something as barebones as Python with WSGI + Jinja2 any day.

Re: HTMLy: Databaseless Blogging Platform (Flat-File Blog)

#9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure makes sense. I asked because I always see post about Jekyll and octopress, and such. That are basically server-less.

Yep - and there's also some benefits performance and security wise to not having any serverside code at all (other than nginx, or whatever). The problems you have with jekyll, pelican, et al is that you lose site-side search, 'related posts' (without some reasonably complex compile-side clobber), etc. etc. Using extremely minimal PHP lets you deploy just as easily, you don't get too much of a performance hit (a hell…

To be honest, not implying you're wrong, but you could have "related posts" with pre-computation, and "site-side search" with a mix of pre-computed data structures and front-end Javascript (which could be quite efficient, provided the blog is not too large).
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