7 ms·

You don't need Google Docs either. Seems like a terrible decision since Google is known for randomly shutting down services and updating their terms of use at a

You don't need Google Docs either. Seems like a terrible decision since Google is known for randomly shutting down services and updating their terms of use at any point. It's a nice proof of concept but I'd stick with WordPress or a static site generator

pavel_lishin 8y ago
Google Docs is probably _reasonably_ safe; it's used by a lot of Google's business users, and has no clear internal competitor anxious to murder it. (As far as I know, anyway.) I'd say that Docs is as safe as YouTube or Gmail. Sure, you might get locked out of your account with no recourse, but the offering itself isn't likely to go away.
- mort96 8y ago
  I thought Inbox was reasonably safe. After all, it's part of their e-mail offering, right?
  - jermaustin1 8y ago
    Inbox was kind of an experiment and competition with their main GMail offering. It had resources that ABC probably felt could be used elsewhere, so they took what were probably the most used features from it, merged it back into GMail and killed it. Docs doesn't have anything in their current product line that they can do the same to, they might merge another product INTO Docs and kill that product, but never Docs itself.
Bekwnn 8y ago
Setting a site up with Jekyll took less than a weekend, and I'm a C++/games programmer with next to zero web experience. If you want a blog I don't know why you would go with anything but starting with a static site generator and building on top of that.
- ronaldl93 8y ago
  You're still a C++ developer... A normal mom/dad who simply wants to share his/her latest cookie recipe isn't gonna want to deal with Jekyll.
  - mikestew 8y ago
    Don't forget the "less than a weekend" part, either. You know what normals can do in a weekend? Build a backyard fence. Install solar panels on an RV. Drop the engine in that VW and freshen up the top end. Put new tires on three motorcycles, by hand, and balance them; with enough time to ride on Sunday. (All of which I personally have done in less than a weekend.) And you're saying other people can see pictures of my kids with "only" a weekend's worth of work (assuming one is an experienced developer)? Yeah, thanks, I'll stick with Wordpress.
  - Bekwnn 8y ago
    Right, my comment is more directed at people who are somewhat tech savy and a response to the parent's comment about static site generators. I'm echoing and advocating how easy they are. And the comment is directed at people reading hacker news, so a majority are probably tech savy enough to glue together some CSS, small html templates, and markdown.
smacktoward 8y ago
Most static site generators require authors to learn something like Markdown in order to publish, which is a much bigger hurdle for non-technical people than technical people generally appreciate. Google Docs at least provides a WYSIWYG-ish interface many people will already be familiar with, and those that aren't won't find as forbidding.
- notriddle 8y ago
  https://cloudcannon.com/ https://cloudcannon.com/
- levythe 8y ago
  I never thought I would hear someone call markdown a hurdle to adoption. Maybe I'm more semantically minded, but I have yet to find a markup syntax easier to figure out than markdown, including the rich text editors in Google Docs.
  - chungy 8y ago
    There are much more intuitive markup languages than Markdown, like AsciiDoc and Org-Mode. Plus Markdown's issue with multiple incompatible implementations...
  - smacktoward 8y ago
    It cannot be emphasized strongly enough that non-technical people see these things completely differently than technical people do. Seen through the eyes of technical people like your average HN reader, Markdown is simple and lightweight. Seen through the eyes of a non-technical person, marking up text in any format (not just Markdown) looks indistinguishable from writing code, which is something they believe deep down is way over their heads. The pushback you will get from them if you try to force them to do it anyway is typically epic. They will fight against it every step of the way. It's not impossible to get regular people to mark up text; WordPerfect did so very effectively for many years. But it's worth remembering that (1) that was in the 1980s, when people put up with having to learn things they didn't want to because the technology wasn't advanced enough to offer them an alternative, and (2) eventually the technology did advance, and Microsoft Word came along with its WYSIWYG interface and promptly put WordPerfect into a hole in the desert. It's also not impossible to write a static CMS that provides a normie-friendly WYSIWYG interface, rather than having everything revolve around editing text files. That's what Movable Type (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movable_Type https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movable_Type) was, for instance, a set of Perl scripts that provided a friendly WYSIWYG interface over content stored in a database, and then ground out static pages from that content whenever it changed. But modern SSGs are pitched to developers first and foremost, so they all revolve around stuff like Markdown and Git that are about as approachable to non-technical people as garlic is to Dracula.
tracker1 8y ago
I don't think Google Docs is going anywhere, but what actually concerns me more, is I seem to recall some articles last year about a number of private google docs that were deleted by google because of $reasons. (ranging from content protection, to firing on appropriateness or censorship). That would be my bigger concern.
- miguelmota 8y ago
  Very true, definitely a major concern. I've heard horror stories of accounts being locked out or services cancelled on them without warning because of certain 'violations'

pavel_lishin 8y ago

Google Docs is probably _reasonably_ safe; it's used by a lot of Google's business users, and has no clear internal competitor anxious to murder it. (As far as I know, anyway.) I'd say that Docs is as safe as YouTube or Gmail. Sure, you might get locked out of your account with no recourse, but the offering itself isn't likely to go away.

mort96 8y ago
I thought Inbox was reasonably safe. After all, it's part of their e-mail offering, right?
- jermaustin1 8y ago
  Inbox was kind of an experiment and competition with their main GMail offering. It had resources that ABC probably felt could be used elsewhere, so they took what were probably the most used features from it, merged it back into GMail and killed it. Docs doesn't have anything in their current product line that they can do the same to, they might merge another product INTO Docs and kill that product, but never Docs itself.

Bekwnn 8y ago

Setting a site up with Jekyll took less than a weekend, and I'm a C++/games programmer with next to zero web experience. If you want a blog I don't know why you would go with anything but starting with a static site generator and building on top of that.

ronaldl93 8y ago
You're still a C++ developer... A normal mom/dad who simply wants to share his/her latest cookie recipe isn't gonna want to deal with Jekyll.
- mikestew 8y ago
  Don't forget the "less than a weekend" part, either. You know what normals can do in a weekend? Build a backyard fence. Install solar panels on an RV. Drop the engine in that VW and freshen up the top end. Put new tires on three motorcycles, by hand, and balance them; with enough time to ride on Sunday. (All of which I personally have done in less than a weekend.) And you're saying other people can see pictures of my kids with "only" a weekend's worth of work (assuming one is an experienced developer)? Yeah, thanks, I'll stick with Wordpress.
- Bekwnn 8y ago
  Right, my comment is more directed at people who are somewhat tech savy and a response to the parent's comment about static site generators. I'm echoing and advocating how easy they are. And the comment is directed at people reading hacker news, so a majority are probably tech savy enough to glue together some CSS, small html templates, and markdown.

smacktoward 8y ago

Most static site generators require authors to learn something like Markdown in order to publish, which is a much bigger hurdle for non-technical people than technical people generally appreciate. Google Docs at least provides a WYSIWYG-ish interface many people will already be familiar with, and those that aren't won't find as forbidding.

notriddle 8y ago
https://cloudcannon.com/ https://cloudcannon.com/
levythe 8y ago
I never thought I would hear someone call markdown a hurdle to adoption. Maybe I'm more semantically minded, but I have yet to find a markup syntax easier to figure out than markdown, including the rich text editors in Google Docs.
- chungy 8y ago
  There are much more intuitive markup languages than Markdown, like AsciiDoc and Org-Mode. Plus Markdown's issue with multiple incompatible implementations...
- smacktoward 8y ago
  It cannot be emphasized strongly enough that non-technical people see these things completely differently than technical people do. Seen through the eyes of technical people like your average HN reader, Markdown is simple and lightweight. Seen through the eyes of a non-technical person, marking up text in any format (not just Markdown) looks indistinguishable from writing code, which is something they believe deep down is way over their heads. The pushback you will get from them if you try to force them to do it anyway is typically epic. They will fight against it every step of the way. It's not impossible to get regular people to mark up text; WordPerfect did so very effectively for many years. But it's worth remembering that (1) that was in the 1980s, when people put up with having to learn things they didn't want to because the technology wasn't advanced enough to offer them an alternative, and (2) eventually the technology did advance, and Microsoft Word came along with its WYSIWYG interface and promptly put WordPerfect into a hole in the desert. It's also not impossible to write a static CMS that provides a normie-friendly WYSIWYG interface, rather than having everything revolve around editing text files. That's what Movable Type (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movable_Type https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movable_Type) was, for instance, a set of Perl scripts that provided a friendly WYSIWYG interface over content stored in a database, and then ground out static pages from that content whenever it changed. But modern SSGs are pitched to developers first and foremost, so they all revolve around stuff like Markdown and Git that are about as approachable to non-technical people as garlic is to Dracula.

tracker1 8y ago

I don't think Google Docs is going anywhere, but what actually concerns me more, is I seem to recall some articles last year about a number of private google docs that were deleted by google because of $reasons. (ranging from content protection, to firing on appropriateness or censorship). That would be my bigger concern.

miguelmota 8y ago
Very true, definitely a major concern. I've heard horror stories of accounts being locked out or services cancelled on them without warning because of certain 'violations'