• Database
• Static Files
• Creating Content

Static files vs database-backed blogging systems

• March 2007 - Brent Simmons - Imagining a Node Blogging System for Geeks
• March 2011 - Brent Simmons - A plea for baked weblogs
• July 2002 - Aaron Swartz - Bake, Don’t Fry

Database

I prefer the database because it's easy to write, read, and search. The database is good for frequent posting like I do, especially with the "notes" or microblog posts.

And I want the wiki-like features, such as double-bracket case to create links to articles, versioning, differences, redirects, and template includes even if I don't use these features every day.

I guess Junco-powered JotHut.com is less of a blogging system and more of a publishing app. It's my personal content management or knowledge management system that is used to store many types of text content, such as ideas, opinions, notes, and recipes.

And I want to be able to create and edit notes and articles from not only my laptop but also from a tablet, dumbphone, and smartphone.

I'm not concerned with traffic. I want a place that easily stores and retrieves information that interests me.

Static Files

For infrequent blogging or publishing, like once a day or only a few times a week or month, then I could see the acceptance of a static site generator.

This type of app may only work well when using a desktop/laptop. For a static site blogging app, can a user create or edit posts on a phone or tablet?

It seems that static site apps require too many steps to publish an article.

Creating Content

To publish a microblog or note at JotHut, which uses my Junco code:

1. enter text into small textarea box on the homepage
2. click the post button

To publish a blog or article at JotHut:

1. click the hamburger icon
2. click the post link
3. enter text into textarea box
4. click the post button

It would be three steps to create a blog post if I left the post link in the nav bar across the top of the site, instead of burying nav bar options within the slide-in menu. I wanted to simplify the look and remove links. That meant one additional click or tap by hitting the hamburger icon.

If I want to create or edit an article with the advanced writing area, then I need to add one additional step: click the split link.

#blogging - #design - #programming - #blog_jr