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Automate GitHub Pages with IFTTT, Glitch and Jekyll

webrender.net

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Re: Automate GitHub Pages with IFTTT, Glitch and Jekyll

#21

Post by paradite »

doublerebel wrote: post #18
paradite wrote: post #16

I have been using WordPress for my personal blog and such task is trivial in WordPress with built-in sharing feature. What's more you can have control over the source code when you host it on your own VPS. The free WordPress hosting by wordpress.com has the same functionality built-in. What are some of the advantages of using this workflow involving multiple services/tools? I feel that this is too many dependencies t…

This seems like too easy a question, but - WordPress is dynamic, not static, which contributes to: - WordPress takes more resources to run, and - WordPress regularly has security holes - WordPress is therefore not simple because it requires maintenance - WordPress relies on countless server- and client-side dependencies, which contributes to the maintenance and server requirements

> WordPress relies on countless server- and client-side dependencies

Which you have access to the source code and ability to choose when to upgrade.

Compare that to GitHub, Glitch and IFTTT, which:

- Also have countless dependencies, but not just in the source code, in their service architecture as well

- You do not have access to source code

- Can make your blog offline when they experience service disruption

Re: Automate GitHub Pages with IFTTT, Glitch and Jekyll

#22

Post by noway421 »

electricEmu wrote: post #11
noway421 wrote: post #9

I'm fascinated how far we can take SaaS solutions to build something you would usually deploy on PaaS before (i.e. a CMS). While a slightly unrelated question, I was wondering: is there a PaaS platform which really replaces AWS ec2 instance by flexibility/capabilities? EC2 has great ecosystem (RDS+Elastic Cache+S3) and great flexibility of just setting up some extras on the side (App specific cron jobs+Letsencrypt cr…

Azure has been something I've considered for this exact purpose. The PaaS and ARM Templates abstract away IaaS and provides both configuration and secret management. It should be possible for someone to deploy a Mastodon or Matrix instance via Azure PaaS with no IaaS management necessary. With Kudu's Git triggers, automatic updates might even be possible! It's no small feat though. It also would require a great deal…

Secret management, yes!

Secret management + Automatic Deployments + Cronjobs + Lets encrypt management is what I'm really looking for.

It could be solved on Amazon: codepipeline + ECS + lambda + route53 (although no let's encrypt here) but they are all really separated products which need some tinkering to set up nicely. And even then, cronjobs through lambda feel like such a dirty hack.

ARM sounds interesting, but judging by the extensive documentation it's need way too much configuration.

Re: Automate GitHub Pages with IFTTT, Glitch and Jekyll

#23

Post by applecrazy »

GarethX wrote: post #12
applecrazy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for, starters, Glitch is free for unlimited usage :) Glitch is geared towards people collaboratively working on Node apps (it doesn't support anything else, unlike the other options). However, it's much easier to get started, with an in-browser code editor, console, and starter projects. I've been using Glitch to play around with ideas mostly and then I will build locally and deploy to something like Heroku. On…

You can set your Glitch project to private to hide the source code under advanced options from the top-left project info menu.

Nice. I'll use this in the future, thanks.

Re: Automate GitHub Pages with IFTTT, Glitch and Jekyll

#24

Post by btgeekboy »

paradite wrote: post #21
doublerebel wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like too easy a question, but - WordPress is dynamic, not static, which contributes to: - WordPress takes more resources to run, and - WordPress regularly has security holes - WordPress is therefore not simple because it requires maintenance - WordPress relies on countless server- and client-side dependencies, which contributes to the maintenance and server requirements

> WordPress relies on countless server- and client-side dependencies Which you have access to the source code and ability to choose when to upgrade. Compare that to GitHub, Glitch and IFTTT, which: - Also have countless dependencies, but not just in the source code, in their service architecture as well - You do not have access to source code - Can make your blog offline when they experience service disruption

The only step in that chain that can take your blog offline for visitors is GitHub pages. The cool thing about static sites is they're really easy to replicate to a second provider. Or a 3rd, 4th, nth...

Re: Automate GitHub Pages with IFTTT, Glitch and Jekyll

#25

Post by icebraining »

progval wrote: post #7

Wouldn't it be simpler to host a lightweight dynamic website? Automatic commits to a git repo of a static website to make it reflect dynamic data reminds me of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15272144

You'd still need a cache, because you shouldn't be hitting the Twitter API every time you load a page. Then you might have to add a frontend cache to avoid having to regenerate the HTML every time. This solution allows you to avoid those two caches while being more efficient, since everything is only generated once.

Re: Automate GitHub Pages with IFTTT, Glitch and Jekyll

#27

Post by michaeloblak »

This is very interesting write up. Kudos for the author for completing it and showing the whole process. Nevertheless, coding skills were still necessary.

Right now I'm working on a tool to achieve such kind of automation of a website, but without code. Mostly without the glitch part from the post. Working on any kind of hosting, no matter what underlying technology - WordPress, GH pages, whatever. With interface similar to IFTTT where you connect 3rd party apps to a website to populate content - like in the example from the post - data from Instagram on the website. Or data from Slack bot on website (D&D example). UX for this project is not an easy stuff. Also, we are thinking what services are most important to be on the platform at the very beginning. We would love to hear any kind of feedback. If you are interested find my email in my bio.

Re: Automate GitHub Pages with IFTTT, Glitch and Jekyll

#28

Post by chiefalchemist »

doublerebel wrote: post #15
farnsworthy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upvoted, because there's nothing wrong with this sort of comment, and this and the posts above represent two sides of the same coin--one wants to support, the other wants to tear down, but is shielded behind a veneer of "helpfulness" or "constructive criticism," when in fact it is not. Complainers complain, and like attracts like. If people want to assert that supportive comments don't "contribute," then knee-jerk do…

All it takes is a "because". I'm a big fan of X because it has provided Y benefit. This helps others decide when such a software/product is useful. Otherwise the comment is an unsubstantiated "me too", for which an upvote already exists. Such low quality comments are a... relatively new trend on HN. Not to mention complaints about downvotes are directly against HN policy.

Fair enough.

But let me explain MY pov. It didnt not strike me as a heavy duty (read: high comment volume) topic on NH.

Too often we don't take the time to say thanks, to actuwlly acknowledge the efforts of someone else. Sorry, the upvote, Like, etc. doesn't cut it.

Why is HN so anti-human? Why always the "don't slip up, we'll get you"? Why always so elitist? Why so pro assimulation?

More importantly, why is HN so often completely unaware of context? Ruling on a comment alone reeks of lacking communications skills. Context matters. And in this case...well, I can't believe I'm writing this comment. It says more about HN than it does about me.

Yeah. I know. This will be downvoted.

Re: Automate GitHub Pages with IFTTT, Glitch and Jekyll

#30

Post by webrender »

paradite wrote: post #16

I have been using WordPress for my personal blog and such task is trivial in WordPress with built-in sharing feature. What's more you can have control over the source code when you host it on your own VPS. The free WordPress hosting by wordpress.com has the same functionality built-in. What are some of the advantages of using this workflow involving multiple services/tools? I feel that this is too many dependencies t…

I could be wrong, but I believe WordPress' sharing features are built to share your WordPress posts out to other social networks - this tool is made to do the opposite, to take your posts from other forms of social media and import them as posts on your blog. I don't believe WordPress has that native capability - although it's worth noting that IFTTT natively supports posting to WordPress and other social networks as an action. Previously, my site was on Tumblr and I used IFTTT's Tumblr actions in a similar manner.

In my opinion, the primary advantage Github Pages has over a CMS like Wordpress is simplicity and lack of cruft. WordPress is an extremely powerful tool, but 95% of blogs, mine included, don't need the features that WP provides - and more importantly, the added code and serving overhead that comes with it.

When I've done WordPress development in the past, a lot of customization can be done on the theme level but sometimes you need to adjust the model around which a page is served and it can become confusing and complex with WP's expansive codebase. With Jekyll, it's easy to see every file and how those files combine to create my site pages. It's also easy to serve locally and I can rest assured that Github will build my site in the same manner as it's being built locally.

Finally, I would assert that I have much finer control over my source using Github Pages compared to WordPress - my site, in its native form, is literally a repository which I can move and rebuild on any number of platforms without any backend configuration. And that same repository is automatically open-sourced and built on Github without my having to maintain a build system. I never have to worry about migrating a database, I never have to worry about plugin updates breaking my page, and I never need to worry about PHP vulnerabilities compromising my data. When I look at Github Pages, I feel like GH really managed to abide by KISS principles, saying "what is the MVP for a blogging platform" and providing that in a clean & performant manner.

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