Lacking Natural Simplicity (Posts about website)https://tkurtbond.github.io/categories/website.atom2024-01-23T18:49:33ZT. Kurt BondNikolaRecent Website Changeshttps://tkurtbond.github.io/posts/2009/04/21/recent-website-changes/2009-04-21T18:52:51-05:002009-04-21T18:52:51-05:00T. Kurt Bond<p>I've recently <a class="reference external" href="https://tkurtbond.github.io/pages/colophon/#sphinx-built">changed</a> the way I build my <a class="reference external" href="http://consp.org/~tkb">website</a>, from using DocBook
source and the DocBook XSL Stylesheets to convert it to HTML, over to
reStructuredText source and <a class="reference external" href="https://www.sphinx-doc.org/">Sphinx</a> to convert it over to HTML.
<span class="app">Sphinx</span> is much faster and less resource intensive for the
way I build my website, and is more reliable about noticing when
things have changed than my old hacked up <span class="app">cook</span>- or
<span class="app">make</span>-based build systems. Since updating the site is now much
easier I'm much more likely to actually do so.</p>
<!-- I left the consp.org address in for the wayback machine. -->More blog software munginghttps://tkurtbond.github.io/posts/2008/09/06/more-blog-software-munging/2008-09-06T08:31:07-05:002008-09-06T08:31:07-05:00T. Kurt Bond<p>I've been munging my blog some more. Right now it's only running
under WSGI, and I've turned the tags and the tag cloud back on. There
was some odd behavior earlier, so it may still be somewhat broken.</p>PyBlosxom WSGI?https://tkurtbond.github.io/posts/2008/08/12/pyblosxom-wsgi/2008-08-12T20:20:43-05:002008-08-12T20:20:43-05:00T. Kurt Bond<p>I'm fiddling with a WSGI instance of PyBlosxom. It seems faster than
the CGI version.</p>Now 100% More Static! Rendering, that ishttps://tkurtbond.github.io/posts/2008/08/11/now-100-percent-more-static/2008-08-11T11:33:12-05:002008-08-11T11:33:12-05:00T. Kurt Bond<p>I've changed the blog to using pyBlosxom's static rendering.
Unfortunately, this meant getting rid of tags and the tag cloud.
Perhaps I'll be able to add them back in later. Oh well.</p>Why am I blogging more?https://tkurtbond.github.io/posts/2008/08/10/why-am-i-blogging-more/2008-08-10T22:49:35-05:002008-08-10T22:49:35-05:00T. Kurt Bond<p>I suppose in part it is because I simply reached the maximum level of
frustration with my previous set of tools that I could stand, and have
had to start looking at alternatives. (Unfortunately, this happened
with a number of things all at once, so I'm looking for replacements
for several of the tools I use constantly.)</p>
<p>In part it is simply because I need more practice writing. At one
point in my life I did a lot of writing, and fairly easily. Of late,
it's been harder and has happened much less. I need to get back into
practice.</p>Blogging Software: Static Renderinghttps://tkurtbond.github.io/posts/2008/08/10/blogging-software-static-rendering/2008-08-10T22:39:26-05:002008-08-10T22:39:26-05:00T. Kurt Bond<p>I'm slowly figuring out more about <a class="reference external" href="http://pyblosxom.sourceforge.net/">pyBlosxom</a>, and will eventually end
up with a reasonable set of blog tools. This evening I've been
figuring out more about statically rendering my blog, which ought to
overcome the noticable lags when accessing my blog. I haven't
switched the actual blog over to static rendering yet, but I'm getting
closer. So far the incremental part doesn't seem to be working.</p>
<p>I considered moving to <a class="reference external" href="http://jared.henley.id.au/software/awb/">awb</a>, an <a class="reference external" href="http://www.methods.co.nz/asciidoc/">AsciiDoc</a>-based Website Builder, but I
still find the <a class="reference external" href="https://docutils.sourceforge.io/rst.html">reStructuredText</a> markup slightly nicer. If only there
was a good reStructuredText to <a class="reference external" href="https://tkurtbond.github.io/posts/2008/07/08/docbook/">DocBook</a> path I'd have no qualms at
all.</p>Website Constructionhttps://tkurtbond.github.io/posts/2008/07/07/website-construction/2008-07-07T20:12:17-05:002008-07-07T20:12:17-05:00T. Kurt Bond<p>I've been using the DocBook Website customization to build my website
since the beginning.</p>
<p>First I used the DSSSL stylesheets to built it. They built the
website as a single SGML (and later XML) document from multiple input
files included into a main organizing file that produced multiple HTML
output files, checking all the cross references and building a site
map. Unfortunately, this method stopped working in my environment for
some reason, and I never had time to figure out why.</p>
<p>I thought I'd see how the XSL stylesheets the DocBook Website
customization worked. The architecture for the Website customization
changed between the two: now the website was multiple documents, each
built from an XML input file and producing an HTML output file, and
using the DocBook XSL stylesheet <code class="docutils literal">olink</code> cross-document linking for
links between the different pages. This necessitated changing all the
source files, but even more unfortunately the processing of cross
document links consumed so much memory that rebuilding the site took
forever, and eventually got to the point where it used more memory
than was usually available on my server. (Admittedly, my setup was
atypical for DocBook, and perhaps even pathological.)</p>
<p>In disgust, I let my site lie fallow, waiting for some better solution
to present itself. Alas, nothing was immediately forthcoming. I
really like DocBook for markup, and the “correct” solution would
probably be to take <a class="reference external" href="http://norman.walsh.name">Norm Walsh</a>'s <a class="reference external" href="http://norman.walsh.name/2003/05/14/how">route</a> and custom-build some DocBook
to website software, but frankly I haven't had the time or energy to
do that, especially since, if I follow Norm's <a class="reference external" href="http://norman.walsh.name/2003/06/16/build">example</a>, I'd have to
take the time to figure out RDF and so forth.</p>
<p>Eventually I decided that I'd try something minimal: adding a new
<a class="reference external" href="https://tkurtbond.github.io">blog</a> using <a class="reference external" href="http://pybloxsom.sourceforge.net">pyBloxsom</a>, which seemed simple enough to be
comprehendable. It supported <a class="reference external" href="https://docutils.sourceforge.io/rst.html">reStructuredText</a>, one of the nicer
<a class="reference external" href="https://tkurtbond.github.io/posts/2008/07/08/plain-text-markup/">plaintext</a> markup systems, which was a definite bonus <a class="footnote-reference brackets" href="https://tkurtbond.github.io/posts/2008/07/07/website-construction/#simple" id="footnote-reference-1" role="doc-noteref"><span class="fn-bracket">[</span>1<span class="fn-bracket">]</span></a>.
After fiddling around about I got enough for a reasonably comfortable
minimalist blog. So, give it a look-see.</p>
<aside class="footnote-list brackets">
<aside class="footnote brackets" id="simple" role="doc-footnote">
<span class="label"><span class="fn-bracket">[</span><a role="doc-backlink" href="https://tkurtbond.github.io/posts/2008/07/07/website-construction/#footnote-reference-1">1</a><span class="fn-bracket">]</span></span>
<p>I hate most WYSIWYG software, and am hoping that using
reST regularly for the blog will be lightweight enough that I won't
notice the burden.</p>
</aside>
</aside>New Blog: First Posthttps://tkurtbond.github.io/posts/2008/07/07/new-blog-first-post/2008-07-07T17:51:51-05:002008-07-07T17:51:51-05:00T. Kurt Bond<p>I've been increasing dissatisfied with the complex of software I use
to create my web pages. Until I replace the whole thing with something
better I'm going to be doing things on this new blog.</p>
<p>This, by the way, is the actual first post. Anything that is earlier
is backdated to the date it actually happened, and will be
(eventually) marked with the “timewarp” tag, and have a link to this
post.</p>