Intro

I've finally taken the time to put together a very basic blog-like program. The source is available on GitLab. It's incredibly simple - essentially I can write posts, they get saved in files organized by date-based directories, and the directories get updated indices of the posts lying below them. I plan to at least at the ability to edit posts, which isn't technically difficult, but I'm lazy. I also need to add RSS, which should look very similar to the index updates.

One thing that makes this program different from most blogs is that pretty much everything is statically generated. The posts are just plain HTML documents that live on disk, served directly by the HTTP server with no programmatic intervention. Ditto the post indices. They are updated each time I post, which is enough to keep them accurate without incurring processor overhead for each and every request. This is an intentional design goal.

A consequence to that is that some fancy features will take much longer to appear, if ever. Things like links between entries to the previous and next entry, or a pretty formatted calendar for the archives. Also I intend to keep things free of client-side scripting. It's just a bunch of web pages, they don't need to be full on programs.

My plan for this blog is mostly to write about writing software, especially portable software. I've been programming in some capacity or another since 1997, and I've hopefully learned at least one or two useful things worth sharing in that time. If there is something in particular you would like to read my thoughts on, feel free to send me an email.