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by jordanlev 4166 days ago
The point of making a blog dynamic is so a non-technical user can easily manage the content via a dashboard. I'm a big fan of static site generators (which is what I presume you're inferring people should use for blogs instead of wordpress et al), but it is silly to think that uploading markdown files to a server is a reasonable workflow for most non-programmers.

As for loading content with javascript -- I totally agree, this bugs the shit out of me. Also, I browse with cookies disabled by default and it is always frustrating when a site that is only serving content doesn't load properly without cookies. wtf?!
1 comments
normloman 4166 days ago
I'm not advocating static page generators that use markdown. Far from it. I used to use a blog platform called Movable Type. It was just as easy to use as WordPress but it generated static pages. You'd make changes in the back end, click publish, and Movable Type would generate a new static page to serve up.

You can make WordPress generate static pages too. They have plugins for that.

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jordanlev 4166 days ago
ahh, I see what you mean. Yeah, if you don't have comments or other interactive functionality then generating static pages from your data + templates is great.

That being said, in my experience, most sites have at least some interactivity... even if the primary content isn't. Comments are still pretty standard on most blogs (disqus can be an option, but now you're back to the "why does this require javascript when it doesn't really need to?" problem). Surveys and polls have fallen out of fashion (fortunately), but that's another example. Also, contact forms are a big one (and yeah, there are other options like embedding wufoo or using a form-handling service like Brace Forms, but now we're talking about off-loading a lot of functionality to other services).

As a developer, there are a lot of things about wordpress that I don't like... but I cannot argue that for someone who is not a programmer but likes to tinker, it gives you a ton of functionality out-of-the-box or with plugins. It's the last thing I'd want to use personally, but I think this is the appeal of dynamic sites -- it gives you the flexibility to add all sorts of unrelated crap really easily.

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stevewilhelm 4166 days ago
Six Apart's MovableType is still around.

https://movabletype.org

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sandymcm 4166 days ago
I used MT for years. Versions 4 and 5 had various problems, coincidental with various changes at the parent company, SixApart. (At one time they had three blogging products: Vox, TypePad, and MT.)

I've been searching for a suitable replacement ever since MT 4. I tried to switch to WordPress but hated it. Maybe just preferences, but I've never warmed to WP, in spite of trying each new version that launches.

I see that Byrne Reese, former SixApart employee and co-founder of the MT-based OpenMelody project, is now using Ghost.io for his blog. That's the system I'm testing now as well. (Have used Tumblr in the meantime, with some success.)

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