My observation is that about 90% of the Wordpress sites out there don't need Wordpress. All they really need is html/css.
Is Self Hosted Blogging Dead?
121–130 of 199 posts
Re: Is Self Hosted Blogging Dead?
#122The intimidating thing for me was always how heavy blogging software was. Never really liked the idea of centralized hosting, but hosting some huge PHP blob with a database never felt like it was worth it. I'm hosting my own site now running Hugo and I love it. I agree that most people have moved to centralized hosting, but I'm seeing a resurgence of self-hosting with static site generators like jekyll, middleman or…
I use WordPress, a huge PHP blob with a database, for my self-hosted blog. I somewhat agree with the parent and sister comments in that, as a programmer, the way these things work irks me out.
However, I don't agree with the apparently widespread conclusion that it follows, from this sentiment, that not publishing is better than publishing using a less-than-lovely platform. I also don't agree with the widespread corollary, "build your own blog", when as a result you get less features than the irksome WP would give you (a common omission is support for comments - I got some amazing comments over the years, if you think it's not worth having this feature, I think I see where you're coming from, and I think you should reconsider.)
I treat blogging software as I treat any other - I dislike most programs that I run, but I often still choose to run them because the result is worth it. I can't see how "it's not worth" to run PHP+DB in order to be able to publish your thoughts. This is not to say that, given today's alternatives, WP or similar should be chosen over those alternatives, just that not using any of the available options because they're all too irksome feels over the top.
Re: Is Self Hosted Blogging Dead?
#123I'm embarrassed to say that I still hand write my blog directly in HTML using Notepad++ and manually FTP changes to the hosting company. Most of my blog is static HMTL, with a smidgen of script for analytics or occasional interaction. Every now and then I'll use some light PHP (typically when I need interaction with a database on the server).
Re: Is Self Hosted Blogging Dead?
#124My problem with Medium is that it lends this amazing aura of credibility to everything that is published on it. I think they've hit on the design equivalent of the brown note (of South Park fame) which makes readers mentally incontinent vis-a-vis the credibility of the source of the actual text... Or maybe it's just me?
Woah, it was literally your post that just made me realize what medium.com actually is. I've only ever accessed it via hackernews links and they were all to very substantial and well written articles.
If only more folks realized that TED is basically exactly the same thing but with videos of presentations.
Re: Is Self Hosted Blogging Dead?
#125I'm embarrassed to say that I still hand write my blog directly in HTML using Notepad++ and manually FTP changes to the hosting company. Most of my blog is static HMTL, with a smidgen of script for analytics or occasional interaction. Every now and then I'll use some light PHP (typically when I need interaction with a database on the server).
Why be embarrassed? If it works it works. And I bet those pages load faster than most other blogs out there.
Re: Is Self Hosted Blogging Dead?
#126I use and highly recommend hexo.io with it's S3 deployment plugin. It's as good as Jekyll but easier to modify and theme if you come from a web dev background as it's written in NodeJS rather than Ruby.
One doesn't really have to know Ruby to publish with Jekyll. Case in point, I haven't written half a line of Ruby code for my Jekyll blog yet.
Re: Is Self Hosted Blogging Dead?
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
> there was never any Edenic period Agreed. I'm not suggesting there ever was and Edenic period where things were easy, but I do think an argument could be made that things have gotten worse for the non-technical beginner looking to host their own site. First, they've got to make a decision of which publishing platform to install on their site. They'll probably see some online debates, talking about static site gener…
> Compare this to handwriting and uploading html files, and it seems like we've gone backwards. But this isn't apple and oranges; a blog with themes and whatnot is much more sophisticated than the HTML CSS rendering defaults. IMO, a HTML page without any CSS is not that bad looking and you don't really need it. Heck, even a text file written with a little bit of care is perfectly readable.) And the information overlo…
> IMO, a HTML page without any CSS is not that bad looking
There's one exception to this: an HTML page without styling has line width equal to the browser window. Narrow text columns are a dramatic increase in readability.
(And I don't even maximize my browser window... a shocking number of people do, despite the fact that they're using ultra-wide 16:9 screens.)
Re: Is Self Hosted Blogging Dead?
#128I guess there are as many static site generators as there are blogging developers :P
Re: Is Self Hosted Blogging Dead?
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think they've just managed a good design - mostly by resisting the temptation to show off as so many designers do. It's very minimal - if anything it looks similar to the hand-written no-styles websites that academics often write (that look like http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ )
Actually more like http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/ :-)
No, medium isn't quite so horribly narrow as that one, and most academic sites didn't do the narrow thing at all.
Re: Is Self Hosted Blogging Dead?
#130As a blog consumer, rather than producer, I also have reservations about Medium-esque sites, but from the opposite perspective. There's already an infinite quantity of interesting content to read, and it seems reasonable to expect rising quantities of worthwhile, as I find writing and creations that I was unaware of when they were being made. With all this stuff , I want to be able to control where and when I read, a…
The failure of the Web ecosystem as a readily viable document management system is a pretty scathing indictment.
As I write this, I'm desparately trying to winnow my way to "tab zero" (by analog to "inbox zero"). And, at some point, organise the pages I've turned up as interesting to be filed for later research and assimilation.
I'm using a tablet as my primary browsing device lately (battery life, weight, portrait aspect for long-form reading, plus keyboard), but this means hugely stripped down browser capabilities. While I've got bookmarks, there's no tagging or other organisation possible. Even Readability's app (abandonware for the past 3 years) lacks tags. Calibre and Zotero don't have a full-fledged Android apps, Mendeley is owned by Elseveir (no fucking way I'm getting close to that).
And so it goes.