I've been monkeying with my home-built blogging engine again. I was pretty happy with the last rev, but there were a few things I wanted to address with this update.
There are a few features I was jealous of in other blogs that I basically wanted to steal for myself.
From Blosxom, I stole the concept of filesystem as storage. To post a new entry, I just plop down a text file into a special directory, and run a publishing script. The script looks at the modification dates of the files, and formats the main blog page and RSS feed into reverse chronological order. So, if I update something, it floats back to the top. Also, being just plain text files, I can keep them in Subversion and push changes from anywhere.
From John Gruber, I stole Markdown. I was already using this in my W2 wiki engine, and I absolutely love it. It's pretty much the plain-text formatting I already use. Now I can keep everything in plain text files for maximum future-proofing and compatibility, but still generate HTML from them for the blog.
I even sneaked in a bit of extra markup that allows me to link to another blog node easily by title. Like this: Cabel's C4 Session
I've always been jealous of Rui Carmo's ability to intermingle blog posts and authoritative wiki-style anchor pages on a particular subject. So, I stole that too.
I love Tumblr, and even came close to using it at one point. Instead, I just stole the bits I liked. In particular, the ability to post a title-less entry, such as a single photo, embedded video, or quote.
Implementing all this stuff means basically throwing out my blog history, since it wasn't written in the right format. Although I did bring a few things over. I can probably go back and write an importer, if the desire ever arises. But on the other hand, I think I've secretly been longing for a fresh start. I AM FOLLOWING MY BLISS, MAN.
Comments. I got rid of them. I know this is going to be contentious. My current view on comments is I really don't like them -- at all, anywhere on the internet. I'm all for communication between author and reader, but comments are the lowest possible denominator. More often than not, they bring out the absolute worst in people.
The good news is that comments aren't the only avenue for feedback. You are still strongly encouraged to email me your thoughts on anything I write, if you would like to be heard. A link to my email address is right there at the bottom of every page, and my door is open. If it's a really, really good point, I'll come back and integrate it into my post.
It's more austere than ever. I know some of you hate this look. I'm in love with its sheer ridiculous starkness.