Automate GitHub Pages with IFTTT, Glitch and Jekyll(webrender.net) |
Automate GitHub Pages with IFTTT, Glitch and Jekyll(webrender.net) |
Automatic commits to a git repo of a static website to make it reflect dynamic data reminds me of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15272144
1) Most of the time, integrating social networks into your site means either a) using widgets that are hard to work into the main site flow or b) having a backend to pull and integrate social media posts for you. This solution essentially provides B without needing to maintain a backend.
2) When planning my site refactor, Github Pages appealed to me because of its speed and simplicity. This lets me preserve the site automation that would previously have required a CMS, and because the site is static and hosted by Github, I don't need to worry about bandwidth or usage limits.
Right now I'm working on a tool to achieve such kind of automation of a website, but without code. Mostly without the glitch part from the post. Working on any kind of hosting, no matter what underlying technology - WordPress, GH pages, whatever. With interface similar to IFTTT where you connect 3rd party apps to a website to populate content - like in the example from the post - data from Instagram on the website. Or data from Slack bot on website (D&D example). UX for this project is not an easy stuff. Also, we are thinking what services are most important to be on the platform at the very beginning. We would love to hear any kind of feedback. If you are interested find my email in my bio.
While a slightly unrelated question, I was wondering: is there a PaaS platform which really replaces AWS ec2 instance by flexibility/capabilities? EC2 has great ecosystem (RDS+Elastic Cache+S3) and great flexibility of just setting up some extras on the side (App specific cron jobs+Letsencrypt cron jobs). Is there an offering which could really provide all that without going onto IaaS (which is what ec2 is) level?
It should be possible for someone to deploy a Mastodon or Matrix instance via Azure PaaS with no IaaS management necessary. With Kudu's Git triggers, automatic updates might even be possible!
It's no small feat though. It also would require a great deal of ARM JSON which is painful at times.
Secret management + Automatic Deployments + Cronjobs + Lets encrypt management is what I'm really looking for.
It could be solved on Amazon: codepipeline + ECS + lambda + route53 (although no let's encrypt here) but they are all really separated products which need some tinkering to set up nicely. And even then, cronjobs through lambda feel like such a dirty hack.
ARM sounds interesting, but judging by the extensive documentation it's need way too much configuration.
What are some of the advantages of using this workflow involving multiple services/tools? I feel that this is too many dependencies to accompany a simple task.
Also: less parts involved
Glitch is geared towards people collaboratively working on Node apps (it doesn't support anything else, unlike the other options).
However, it's much easier to get started, with an in-browser code editor, console, and starter projects.
I've been using Glitch to play around with ideas mostly and then I will build locally and deploy to something like Heroku. One other downside of Glitch is that source code is viewable by anyone, which means you probably don't want to launch a side project there.
Note: don't work for Glitch, Heroku, or anyone else mentioned
Complainers complain, and like attracts like. If people want to assert that supportive comments don't "contribute," then knee-jerk downvotes for their own sake are equally unhelpful.
Otherwise the comment is an unsubstantiated "me too", for which an upvote already exists. Such low quality comments are a... relatively new trend on HN.
Not to mention complaints about downvotes are directly against HN policy.
- WordPress is dynamic, not static, which contributes to:
- WordPress takes more resources to run, and
- WordPress regularly has security holes
- WordPress is therefore not simple because it requires maintenance
- WordPress relies on countless server- and client-side dependencies, which contributes to the maintenance and server requirements
Which you have access to the source code and ability to choose when to upgrade.
Compare that to GitHub, Glitch and IFTTT, which:
- Also have countless dependencies, but not just in the source code, in their service architecture as well
- You do not have access to source code
- Can make your blog offline when they experience service disruption
In my opinion, the primary advantage Github Pages has over a CMS like Wordpress is simplicity and lack of cruft. WordPress is an extremely powerful tool, but 95% of blogs, mine included, don't need the features that WP provides - and more importantly, the added code and serving overhead that comes with it.
When I've done WordPress development in the past, a lot of customization can be done on the theme level but sometimes you need to adjust the model around which a page is served and it can become confusing and complex with WP's expansive codebase. With Jekyll, it's easy to see every file and how those files combine to create my site pages. It's also easy to serve locally and I can rest assured that Github will build my site in the same manner as it's being built locally.
Finally, I would assert that I have much finer control over my source using Github Pages compared to WordPress - my site, in its native form, is literally a repository which I can move and rebuild on any number of platforms without any backend configuration. And that same repository is automatically open-sourced and built on Github without my having to maintain a build system. I never have to worry about migrating a database, I never have to worry about plugin updates breaking my page, and I never need to worry about PHP vulnerabilities compromising my data. When I look at Github Pages, I feel like GH really managed to abide by KISS principles, saying "what is the MVP for a blogging platform" and providing that in a clean & performant manner.
But let me explain MY pov. It didnt not strike me as a heavy duty (read: high comment volume) topic on NH.
Too often we don't take the time to say thanks, to actuwlly acknowledge the efforts of someone else. Sorry, the upvote, Like, etc. doesn't cut it.
Why is HN so anti-human? Why always the "don't slip up, we'll get you"? Why always so elitist? Why so pro assimulation?
More importantly, why is HN so often completely unaware of context? Ruling on a comment alone reeks of lacking communications skills. Context matters. And in this case...well, I can't believe I'm writing this comment. It says more about HN than it does about me.
Yeah. I know. This will be downvoted.