5 ms·

I have a client who's web site is a series of pages within folders, no database, no scripting, html pages only. It's a complete joy to work on. Problems are rar

I have a client who's web site is a series of pages within folders, no database, no scripting, html pages only. It's a complete joy to work on. Problems are rare and easily resolved, I look forward to updating it. I can't help thinking more small and medium sized web sites should be setup like this.

voltaireodactyl 4y ago
This with added markdown support is basically how blot.im works and it’s what got me actually working on a site (albeit in blog ish format). Not affiliated just a happy customer.
- nintendo1889 4y ago
  What do you think about trump 'selling secrets', in the light of the recent story of Sergey Shestakov and Charles McGonigal? Again, I don't like taking sides. Just searching for absolute truth. We will never get there, but we can try. ref to your comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34019912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34019912
  - voltaireodactyl 4y ago
    This is a thread focused on markdown and html based SSBs. If you would like to continue our political discussion, you are welcome to contact me on my website, where I occasionally write about related issues. But HN guidelines suggest this unrelated thread is not the place for such a conversation.
- zelphirkalt 4y ago
  One of my go-to projects when learning a new programming language: Build a markdown based blog with it. Usually quite simple and you learn a lot about a language doing that.
- doctor_eval 4y ago
  That looks really cool. It seems to be a SSG hooked up to Dropbox/gdrive/git, with no front end. What a great idea.
nine_k 4y ago
I suppose things like a "design update", let alone "rebranding", never happen to this client? Unless every page is entirely unique, a web site consisting of raw HTML pages has a lot of repetition / redundancy, and coordinated updates become repetitive, too. Authoring, too. The upside, of course, is that there's literally nothing to go wrong in the pipeline, because there is none beside the upload operation. I can imagine that sites like https://ciechanow.ski https://ciechanow.ski where every page appears custom-made could be managed like that.
onion2k 4y ago
I can't help thinking more small and medium sized web sites should be setup like this. I don't. Website updates are mostly changes to the content once it's gone live, and that shouldn't require a developer. Having a CMS in the backend and a process to rebuild a static website from the content when it's changed lowers the cost of keeping things up to date, and improves the web by making websites stay relevant. What the code looks like when a dev is working on it, or when it's sitting in a repo, it's mostly irrelevant. The important things are that the site owner can keep the content accurate and up to date, and the HTML and CSS that's delivered to the users is high quality and efficient.
ilyt 4y ago
Static page generator seems like ideal for that kind of stuff. Just enough to not copy-paste same stuff on different pages but not enough to get complex.
- spaniard89277 4y ago
  PicoCMS is even easier. Host it in whatever php hosting service. Upload markdown files to your server and you're done.

voltaireodactyl 4y ago

This with added markdown support is basically how blot.im works and it’s what got me actually working on a site (albeit in blog ish format). Not affiliated just a happy customer.

nintendo1889 4y ago
What do you think about trump 'selling secrets', in the light of the recent story of Sergey Shestakov and Charles McGonigal? Again, I don't like taking sides. Just searching for absolute truth. We will never get there, but we can try. ref to your comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34019912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34019912
- voltaireodactyl 4y ago
  This is a thread focused on markdown and html based SSBs. If you would like to continue our political discussion, you are welcome to contact me on my website, where I occasionally write about related issues. But HN guidelines suggest this unrelated thread is not the place for such a conversation.
zelphirkalt 4y ago
One of my go-to projects when learning a new programming language: Build a markdown based blog with it. Usually quite simple and you learn a lot about a language doing that.
doctor_eval 4y ago
That looks really cool. It seems to be a SSG hooked up to Dropbox/gdrive/git, with no front end. What a great idea.

nine_k 4y ago

I suppose things like a "design update", let alone "rebranding", never happen to this client? Unless every page is entirely unique, a web site consisting of raw HTML pages has a lot of repetition / redundancy, and coordinated updates become repetitive, too. Authoring, too. The upside, of course, is that there's literally nothing to go wrong in the pipeline, because there is none beside the upload operation. I can imagine that sites like https://ciechanow.ski https://ciechanow.ski where every page appears custom-made could be managed like that.

onion2k 4y ago

I can't help thinking more small and medium sized web sites should be setup like this. I don't. Website updates are mostly changes to the content once it's gone live, and that shouldn't require a developer. Having a CMS in the backend and a process to rebuild a static website from the content when it's changed lowers the cost of keeping things up to date, and improves the web by making websites stay relevant. What the code looks like when a dev is working on it, or when it's sitting in a repo, it's mostly irrelevant. The important things are that the site owner can keep the content accurate and up to date, and the HTML and CSS that's delivered to the users is high quality and efficient.

ilyt 4y ago

Static page generator seems like ideal for that kind of stuff. Just enough to not copy-paste same stuff on different pages but not enough to get complex.

spaniard89277 4y ago
PicoCMS is even easier. Host it in whatever php hosting service. Upload markdown files to your server and you're done.