Posted On: 2026-03-02
In the previous post I'd mentioned making changes to this site. Since then, I've been digging more into the details of what I want to do and how best to go about it, and that's taken a bit of a turn. Rather than updating my current system to support the new features (the original plan), I am now seriously considering changing technology altogether (and migrating my 10 years worth of posts to a new platform). Although the plan may (yet again) change in the future, I think it's worth exploring what I want to change, and why changing technology looks like the best move for me at the moment.
In an earlier post, I wrote about how I was generally unhappy with how the blog posts are organized. To put it simply: the current layout works for a dozen or so posts, not the 240+ posts that I have now. There's a lot of ways I could tackle that, but I'm primarily interested in grouping posts into date ranges (ie. by year by default), and adding (optional) filters to allow users to focus on specific categories. Unfortunately, since my blog system is entirely home-grown, doing that requires that I code it myself - taking time away from the many other tasks I am juggling right now.
Those new features I want to add are not exactly cutting-edge: nearly every blogging platform has some kind of support for grouping and filtering posts. Back when I first decided on the technology underpinning this site, CMS-based technology stacks were ubiquitous for blogging, but they always struck me as being overengineered administrative headaches*. Since this was a hobby project back then, I had the time and inclination to build my own solution, and thus used this site to teach myself a new language while building something useful. Since then, alternatives to CMS-based systems have become commonplace, and the particular type of tool I wrote for myself - a static site generator- is one of the most widely used types**.
During the past few years I've found that the process of deploying and maintaining the site has had unexpected issues, and the rate and severity of those issues seem to be increasing. In light of that, I've been questioning whether the current setup (provider, technology, etc.) is really saving me time, or whether it would be worth looking into something new. Up until now, I haven't prioritized looking into alternatives - but now that I've set aside time to add these new features, it's become the ideal time to explore alternatives that give those features out-of-the-box.
Despite it looking like switching to a static site generator would be the best course of action, I'm not rushing to make changes right away. Technology often has hidden burdens, so I want to make sure that the static site generator I choose to use (a choice that's still up in the air) will be as smooth and comfortable to use as when I first set up automated deployments. When, however, I do make the decision, rest assured that I will give plenty of notice - and (most importantly) every link and bookmark will continue to work, regardless of the technical details underpinning it all.