recreating this site

This blog used to be made with Jekyll on Github Pages (which can still be found at the old-blog branch of the git repo), so why rewrite it so it's pre-generated with a bash script? Well one of reasons was that I wanted the site to be purely html and be simpler to modify. Originally, I only intended to redo the theme and keep the rest of the site same as it was, but lately I have been into writing bash so this ended up becoming a bash script called nue.

nue is a dumb script that simply converts markdown files to html and inserts them in a template, while doing the bare minimum of updating the index with each post found in the blog/ directory. You can start writing a new post with nue new or nue -n, it will automatically make a directory and fill out the metadata, using the UNIX time as the date. nue edit or nue -e starts a fzf menu listing every single post, and *.html files can be regenerated with nue build or nue -b when finished.

Jekyll was beyond overkill for me, I don't write much and I don't expect to have any readers. The reason for writing is purely self serving, as a way to keep records of sorts and as a healthier way of killing time. I do, however, still care about presentation. I don't want to use fancy frameworks or libraries to bloat up my website, so it had to be purely html+css (the search function uses a bit of javascript though).

As for what I would write about, I am still undecided but one thing I am certain about is that I want to write about things that could either be helpful to someone, such as guides or just journaling through a process, or maybe writing about certain coding practices. In the past, I've even wanted to write about certain Advent of Code puzzles but didn't have a proper platform to do so, maybe this year I will write about puzzles I find interesting or have something to say about. The other thing I want to write about are beliefs or opinions that I am uncertain of myself in the present. Being able to read in detail how I felt about a certain thing at a point in time in the past and comparing it to how I feel about it in the future is something I wish I could do, so I will maintain a pseudo-public record of sorts. The previous blog was used as a diary, or a SOS message; in contrast, this one is more akin to a journal.

I don't intend to dig up the old posts back up though, as such there's not a lot to show off how the site actually looks when there's content on the screen. So I leave you with a sample markdown file I found on the internet to showcase the site.

An h1 header

Paragraphs are separated by a blank line.

2nd paragraph. Italic, bold, and monospace. Itemized lists look like:

• this one
• that one
• the other one

Note that --- not considering the asterisk --- the actual text content starts at 4-columns in.

Block quotes are written like so.

They can span multiple paragraphs, if you like.

Use 3 dashes for an em-dash. Use 2 dashes for ranges (ex., "it's all in chapters 12--14"). Three dots ... will be converted to an ellipsis. Unicode is supported. ☺

An h2 header

Here's a numbered list:

1. first item
2. second item
3. third item

Note again how the actual text starts at 4 columns in (4 characters from the left side). Here's a code sample:

# Let me re-iterate ...
for i in 1 .. 10 { do-something(i) }

As you probably guessed, indented 4 spaces. By the way, instead of indenting the block, you can use delimited blocks, if you like:

define foobar() {
    print "Welcome to flavor country!";
}

(which makes copying & pasting easier). You can optionally mark the delimited block for Pandoc to syntax highlight it:

import time
# Quick, count to ten!
for i in range(10):
    # (but not *too* quick)
    time.sleep(0.5)
    print i

An h3 header

Now a nested list:

1. First, get these ingredients:

   • carrots
   • celery
   • lentils

2. Boil some water.

3. Dump everything in the pot and follow this algorithm:

   find wooden spoon
   uncover pot
   stir
   cover pot
   balance wooden spoon precariously on pot handle
   wait 10 minutes
   goto first step (or shut off burner when done)

   Do not bump wooden spoon or it will fall.

Notice again how text always lines up on 4-space indents (including that last line which continues item 3 above).

Here's a link to a website, to a local doc, and to a section heading in the current doc. Here's a footnote ¹.

Tables can look like this:

(The above is the caption for the table.) Pandoc also supports multi-line tables:

A horizontal rule follows.

Here's a definition list:

apples

Good for making applesauce. oranges

Citrus! tomatoes

There's no "e" in tomatoe.

Again, text is indented 4 spaces. (Put a blank line between each term/definition pair to spread things out more.)

Here's a "line block":

and images can be specified like so:

Inline math equations go in like so: ω = dϕ/dt. Display math should get its own line and be put in in double-dollarsigns:

I = ∫ρR²dV

And note that you can backslash-escape any punctuation characters which you wish to be displayed literally, ex.: `foo`, *bar*, etc.