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Maybe I'm dense, but I'm having trouble understanding what is so difficult about keeping content around. It seems like the issue of webpack and node and all the

Maybe I'm dense, but I'm having trouble understanding what is so difficult about keeping content around. It seems like the issue of webpack and node and all the other things he mentions on the article aren't really problems with content per se. You can just publish your thoughts as a plain text file or markdown or whatever and you're good to go. I'm having a hard time thinking of types of content that are really tied to a specific presentation format which would require a complex scaffolding. A single static page with your thoughts is sufficient and should require no maintenance to keep around. I do agree though that even static site generators create workflows that get in the way. I'd love to see an extreeeemely minimal tool which lets you drop some files in a folder and then create an index page that links to those. You could argue that's what static site generators pretty much do, but they do seem to be more complex than that in practice. Remember deploying a web site with FTP? I have to say that was simpler for the average person than what we have today. I think that, in some ways, the complexity is what ends up pushing people towards FB, Medium, etc as publishing platforms.

SpaceManiac 7y ago
It seems like in practice the biggest problem is "it got deleted", and everything else is about either preventing others from deleting your stuff or preventing yourself from deleting it out of laziness or frustration. Deploying a web site with (S)FTP works as well as it ever did... and is just as obscure to non-technical people as it ever was. Ease of use means loss of control.
- xwowsersx 7y ago
  > Ease of use means loss of control. It'd be a cool challenge to build something so simple that even a non-tech person could use which allows them to maintain control and ownership. Any good examples of tech in general that is highly approachable like this? Even things like WordPress are too complicated for most - maybe if not self-hosted it's not so difficult, but still falls short in terms of being complex and not just simple text or html (at the most)..
sjy 7y ago
> I'd love to see an extreeeemely minimal tool which lets you drop some files in a folder and then create an index page that links to those. Don’t most web servers do this already?
- xwowsersx 7y ago
  Good point haha
SamPatt 7y ago
Onionshare has this feature, but the website is only accessible over Tor.
- xwowsersx 7y ago
  Oh cool, didn't know about that. Be cool to see something like this which is more approachable for non-tech people. I think the tor part of this, at least in its current state, is too much for the average person.
every 7y ago
"I'd love to see an extreeeemely minimal tool which lets you drop some files in a folder and then create an index page that links to those." I use the tree command on BSD to do just that. It has the option of creating html output with a number of additional options. An example: tree -P *.txt -FC -H http://baseHREF http://baseHREF -T 'Your Title' -o index.html
- xwowsersx 7y ago
  Oh wow thanks for sharing. I use tree all the time, but had no idea you could do this. baseHREF should be the full root domain, e.g. example.com?
  - every 7y ago
    Yeah. And play around with it. It's quite flexible. Color, CSS and other goodies. Takes me about 2 seconds to update my entire site...

SpaceManiac 7y ago

It seems like in practice the biggest problem is "it got deleted", and everything else is about either preventing others from deleting your stuff or preventing yourself from deleting it out of laziness or frustration. Deploying a web site with (S)FTP works as well as it ever did... and is just as obscure to non-technical people as it ever was. Ease of use means loss of control.

xwowsersx 7y ago
> Ease of use means loss of control. It'd be a cool challenge to build something so simple that even a non-tech person could use which allows them to maintain control and ownership. Any good examples of tech in general that is highly approachable like this? Even things like WordPress are too complicated for most - maybe if not self-hosted it's not so difficult, but still falls short in terms of being complex and not just simple text or html (at the most)..

sjy 7y ago

> I'd love to see an extreeeemely minimal tool which lets you drop some files in a folder and then create an index page that links to those. Don’t most web servers do this already?

xwowsersx 7y ago
Good point haha

SamPatt 7y ago

Onionshare has this feature, but the website is only accessible over Tor.

xwowsersx 7y ago
Oh cool, didn't know about that. Be cool to see something like this which is more approachable for non-tech people. I think the tor part of this, at least in its current state, is too much for the average person.

every 7y ago

"I'd love to see an extreeeemely minimal tool which lets you drop some files in a folder and then create an index page that links to those." I use the tree command on BSD to do just that. It has the option of creating html output with a number of additional options. An example: tree -P *.txt -FC -H http://baseHREF http://baseHREF -T 'Your Title' -o index.html

xwowsersx 7y ago
Oh wow thanks for sharing. I use tree all the time, but had no idea you could do this. baseHREF should be the full root domain, e.g. example.com?
- every 7y ago
  Yeah. And play around with it. It's quite flexible. Color, CSS and other goodies. Takes me about 2 seconds to update my entire site...