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Shoehorn basic interactivity like comments? https://gohugo.io/content-management/comments/ https://gohugo.io/content-management/comments/ This includes a gian

by dangus 10mo ago

Shoehorn basic interactivity like comments? https://gohugo.io/content-management/comments/ https://gohugo.io/content-management/comments/ This includes a giant list of open source commenting systems. I really don’t understand why people commonly say static site generators are a good candidate for building your own when there are a good selection of popular, stable options. The only thing I don’t like about Hugo is the experience of using other people’s themes.

cthor 10mo ago
https://cthor.me/SSG https://cthor.me/SSG Getting someone else's SSG to do exactly what you want (and nothing more) takes longer than just building it yourself. Juice isn't worth the squeeze.
- dangus 10mo ago
  I disagree with your take there. > It took me a weekend to write the initial Perl script that made this site. It took me another weekend to do the Rust rewrite (although porting all the content took two weeks). These are not complicated programs. My last Hugo site took 30 minutes to deploy, not a whole weekend. Picked a theme, pasted in content. > You want free web hosting? Hugo might be the right option. An extremely good reason to pick Hugo especially if you don’t have the know-how to build your own SSG. You don’t need to know a programming language at all to use it. Again, I have to throw criticism toward this idea that everyone who wants a static site generator already has the skills required to make one. And I’m not saying it covers every use case like the kind of person who is willing to pay $100+ per year on a full blown solution like Shopify and Squarespace. It fits a niche: someone who wants their content online without coding with no hosting cost and doesn’t want to rely on third party platforms like Substack.
1dom 10mo ago
Pretty much every single option there involved letting a 3rd party collect and own the comments. If you're fine for 3rd parties to own all your comments and content, why even take on the extra effort of hosting or managing or building your own website? That's basically what social media is for.
- dangus 10mo ago
  What do you mean? The list has more open source options than not. You can self-host those. It’s going to be easier to self-host a drop-in comment system than an entire dynamic site plus/including comment system.
  - 1dom 10mo ago
    If you want interactivity, we agree, you have to either run a server, or you have to use a 3rd party. It's easier for a server to render markdown than it is for an SSG site to do server stuff. Your suggestion for comments is to run a server/use a third party, and do SSG. My suggestion is to just run a server. One is clearly easier as it has fewer steps. The idea that you can run a decent personal website without compromising on interactivity, and without running a server or using 3rd parties is a myth. As soon as you accept that you have to run a server, SSG becomes an unnecessary extra step.
    - dangus 10mo ago
      I still I mostly disagree here. With the SSG you’re just managing your static markdown for your site’s content, then you’re dropping in a tiny extra piece for comments. The comment self-hosting is a simple docker container with minimal configuration, an out of the box just works type of service. Building a personal website that is hosted along with the interactivity integrated is more like managing an entire application, which is exactly what Jeff described with his pain using Drupal. He didn’t actually need all the interactivity that a full blown hosted site offers. For example, if I run a PHP, Django, or NodeJS based website, now I’ve got to periodically update my whole site’s codebase to keep up with supported/safe versions of PHP, Python, or Node/npm packages. With the SSG plus comment system you’re pretty much just pulling latest docker image for the comment system and everything else is just static. I think you’d also have to agree that outsourcing comments to a 3rd party service is potentially a simpler/cheaper exercise than outsourcing the entire site. I see that some of the Hugo supported commenting systems seem to have a free tier with no ads that should support Jeff’s traffic. Another interactive example is Netlify’s forms system, which is included in their free product.

by dangus 10mo ago

cthor 10mo ago

https://cthor.me/SSG https://cthor.me/SSG Getting someone else's SSG to do exactly what you want (and nothing more) takes longer than just building it yourself. Juice isn't worth the squeeze.

dangus 10mo ago
I disagree with your take there. > It took me a weekend to write the initial Perl script that made this site. It took me another weekend to do the Rust rewrite (although porting all the content took two weeks). These are not complicated programs. My last Hugo site took 30 minutes to deploy, not a whole weekend. Picked a theme, pasted in content. > You want free web hosting? Hugo might be the right option. An extremely good reason to pick Hugo especially if you don’t have the know-how to build your own SSG. You don’t need to know a programming language at all to use it. Again, I have to throw criticism toward this idea that everyone who wants a static site generator already has the skills required to make one. And I’m not saying it covers every use case like the kind of person who is willing to pay $100+ per year on a full blown solution like Shopify and Squarespace. It fits a niche: someone who wants their content online without coding with no hosting cost and doesn’t want to rely on third party platforms like Substack.

1dom 10mo ago

Pretty much every single option there involved letting a 3rd party collect and own the comments. If you're fine for 3rd parties to own all your comments and content, why even take on the extra effort of hosting or managing or building your own website? That's basically what social media is for.

dangus 10mo ago
What do you mean? The list has more open source options than not. You can self-host those. It’s going to be easier to self-host a drop-in comment system than an entire dynamic site plus/including comment system.
- 1dom 10mo ago
  If you want interactivity, we agree, you have to either run a server, or you have to use a 3rd party. It's easier for a server to render markdown than it is for an SSG site to do server stuff. Your suggestion for comments is to run a server/use a third party, and do SSG. My suggestion is to just run a server. One is clearly easier as it has fewer steps. The idea that you can run a decent personal website without compromising on interactivity, and without running a server or using 3rd parties is a myth. As soon as you accept that you have to run a server, SSG becomes an unnecessary extra step.
  - dangus 10mo ago
    I still I mostly disagree here. With the SSG you’re just managing your static markdown for your site’s content, then you’re dropping in a tiny extra piece for comments. The comment self-hosting is a simple docker container with minimal configuration, an out of the box just works type of service. Building a personal website that is hosted along with the interactivity integrated is more like managing an entire application, which is exactly what Jeff described with his pain using Drupal. He didn’t actually need all the interactivity that a full blown hosted site offers. For example, if I run a PHP, Django, or NodeJS based website, now I’ve got to periodically update my whole site’s codebase to keep up with supported/safe versions of PHP, Python, or Node/npm packages. With the SSG plus comment system you’re pretty much just pulling latest docker image for the comment system and everything else is just static. I think you’d also have to agree that outsourcing comments to a 3rd party service is potentially a simpler/cheaper exercise than outsourcing the entire site. I see that some of the Hugo supported commenting systems seem to have a free tier with no ads that should support Jeff’s traffic. Another interactive example is Netlify’s forms system, which is included in their free product.