Hello, again
Why this site exists, and what I intend to put on it.
- meta
- writing
Every couple of years I decide I need somewhere to write things down, spend a weekend wiring up a static site generator, and then publish exactly one post about how I set up the static site generator.
This is that post, so let's get it out of the way.
What this is
This site is a small Rails application: one process, markdown files in git, and no database anywhere in the read path. Posts are parsed at boot and served straight out of memory.
That means the deploy is boring, which is the point. Adding a post is a commit,
and rolling back a bad post is a git revert.
Why not a static generator
I've used them, and they're good. But I wanted somewhere to put the occasional dynamic thing — a search box, a now page that pulls from an API, an RSS feed I control — without bolting a build step onto a build step.
Rails gives me that, and it's the tool I already know well enough to be dangerous with.
What to expect
- Notes on reliability, infrastructure, and networking
- Things I had to learn the hard way, written down before I forget them
- The occasional digression
If you're here for a specific reason, get in touch.