FOR INPUT: Thoughts on converting from static -> dynamic site?

[econchick]

I like static/mynt because it's simple HTML from Markdown. I use it for roguelynn.com and pyladies.com

But I want this project to grow, so I'm not sure how the best to "scale" when wanting to add more tutorials, offering more communications (e.g. forums for folks to ask questions publicly), perhaps more features (e.g. a voting system on the next new tutorial).

One reason I chose mynt is that it's Python, so I want to maintain being "pythonic" in terms of the tools used to generate site content.

I'm not really wanting to go through a WYSIWYG editor for posting new tutorials/content (although I can see how something like that would simplify maintenance in fixing typos/links/etc).

I want to see other people contributing to the production of this site (as opposed to the consumption), so I'm hoping to get some public thought on this as a maintainer point of view.

If the answer is 'stick with it' I'm fine with that.

[merwok]

I’m a big fan of Sphinx: powerful markup language, plain text in a repo, cross-platform build tool, Read The Docs for free hosting, PDF export, lovely themes.

For comments, there are solutions like Disqus and Facebook comments, if one does not mind having data in a third-party, closed service.

For votes I don’t know, but Github issues could be used.

[merwok]

I didn’t really reply to the actual question :) Static website generators have a ton of advantages; dynamic features can be added without making the full site dynamic; Sphinx could be a better static solution than Mynt.

[waferbaby]

I would stick with static, though I am slightly biased because that's what I'm using for usesthis.com :) Easier to maintain, easier (maybe?) to get people to contribute (no need to build a GUI editor) - Markdown is easy (and awesome).

[esacteksab]

My $.02 cents

I vote keep it static.

• Add new tutorial -- push PR with new markdown
• make suggestions -- GH Issues
• comments -- Disqus or GH Issues again
• voting -- Does GH support +1 yet? or if leveraging Disqus, Disqus does support +1

Effort put forth migrating to dynamic site (Flask or Django I assume) could be spent extending tutorials or creating new ones.

[econchick]

@merwok but... rST! MD > rST (for me, at least).

@esacteksab have you seen moot.it? What do you think of it? We're trying it out on discuss.pyladies.com. Also, great point on time focusing on tutorials. +1.

@waferbaby Just curious, what static generator do you use for usesthis?

I think the consensus is +1 on static. I would need serious convincing to consider Sphinx. MD I feel is simpler to allow folks to contribute to; pandoc can easily generate PDFs (maybe I'll make a hook for mynt when generating html), I already have free hosting \o/. @merwok How does Sphinx differ in cross-platform from Mynt/MD? What plugins exist in Sphinx that allows dynamic features?

I'm not really sold on the current theme of the site; irks me a little bit but can't pin-point why.

Sounds like I'll stick with GH for suggestions/issues/contributing.

[esacteksab]

I had never heard of moot.it before, but it looks nice! It reminds me of http://www.discourse.org/

On Wed, Sep 4, 2013 at 3:07 PM, Lynn Root notifications@github.com wrote:

@merwok https://github.com/merwok but... rST! MD > rST (for me, at least).

@esacteksab https://github.com/esacteksab have you seen moot.it? What do you think of it? We're trying it out on discuss.pyladies.com. Also, great point on time focusing on tutorials. +1.

@waferbaby https://github.com/waferbaby Just curious, what static generator do you use for usesthis?

I think the consensus is +1 on static. I would need serious convincing to consider Sphinx. MD I feel is simpler to allow folks to contribute to; pandoc can easily generate PDFs (maybe I'll make a hook for mynt when generating html), I already have free hosting \o/. @merwokhttps://github.com/merwokHow does Sphinx differ in cross-platform from Mynt/MD? What plugins exist in Sphinx that allows dynamic features?

I'm not really sold on the current theme of the site; irks me a little bit but can't pin-point why.

Sounds like I'll stick with GH for suggestions/issues/contributing.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/econchick/new-coder/issues/64#issuecomment-23828925 .

[kzahel]

Hmm, just a thought... what if you could do wiki-style editing and when you save, it triggers a commit in this repository with valid markdown from a "github bot" of some sort using some github api or another. That would be pretty cool; I wonder if there is already a project that does this. I have to agree that static sites are nice, they're just simpler.

[ghost]

My 2ç.

As I answered on Twitter, I did not know that a static website was still an option. But after all, that makes perfectly sense. I had a look at your sites and they are really really fast. That also simplifies the installation, you just need an web server and no DB.

I personally use WordPress, which is a quite popular blogging platform, very close to a CMS. Nothing to do with Python, as everything is in PHP. I have never seen a single line of code of it. If you want, you can modify it, if you really need to. They are also many add-on.

WordPress has been design as a team publishing platform. You can let others write and/or publish papers for you. Readers can also post comments. You can define several users and assign them a profil limiting what they can do.

I have removed the WYSIWYG editor. I write directly in HTML, with simple tags, probably the same that are generated from markdown. The real layout is applied from the templates. Not as good as markdown, but still readable and let me in control of the display.

Last point, that was important for me, SEO handling. There is a couple of add-on to improve the search rank. If you do not expect too much, as there is no magic, they are quite good. I'm satisfied with them.

That was my 2ç and I feel a little bit alone on this issue. ;)

[merwok]

I used wordpress as a quick and dirty publishing system during GSoC and it was okay (I converted simple markup to HTML with a program though); for the Montréal-Python website using wordpress has been bad for customization, maintenance and usage. I very strongly prefer text files in a repository deployed as static HTML :)

[merwok]

@kzahel Gitbhub does provided web-based editing!

[ghost]

I have tested a static site generator (dropplets) and here is my feedback.

I do not know what you mean by "grow". There are two understandings for me:

• more audience (more traffic)
• more collaboration

For draining more people, you will have to focus on SEO. I did not see any option to manage that properly in the static site generator. It's not very complicated though and I'm sure that they could be developed (if no idea, reading a couple of WordPress plugin doc could help). I'm still surprised to see my pages (on WordPress) in searches, or the interactions that I have with readers.

For more collaborators, a kind of CMS with a back-end makes more sense to me.

I found the static generator very attractive, because simple and minimalist, thing that I like. I finally prefer to use a CMS. The back-end is very useful for posting, mass processing of posts or pictures management (resizing and so on). My wordpress is quite simple. Only an plugin for SEO and backup. No modification, no adaptation, WYSIWYG deactivated. I'm alone on my blog, but I have used WordPress with a team. My next blog will be also based on WordPress.

@merwork: what do you consider as bad with WordPress?

Final thought, mind first SEO and collaboration, use the tools you feel comfortable with and focus on the content.

[waferbaby]

@econchick: Crap, I never replied to this :) I use my own stupid static site generator I wrote - https://github.com/waferbaby/salt/