This could just as well be titled Trouble with blogging software.
If you’re reading this, then at some point I had success. Let me tell you about some of the trials along the way.
My first taste of server-side programming was in PHP. At the same time, I was taking a basic theming course for Wordpress. So setting up a Wordpress (.org or .com) site would be easy, and I could probably be done with it in less than an hour if I didn’t get distracted by theming.
Wordpress
I have worked with PHP and Wordpress though, and know that I want to be part of the movement away from them (find me in IRC sometime as samsch (newer) or samssh (older)). So I struck out on the journey to find an alternative. There are many, and I’ve tried a few. I’m actually writing this in Markdown as part of a Hexo blog right now.
Hexo
So, if I’m writing this is Hexo, why would I not just use it for my blog? Hexo has a distinct lack of a comment system. Hexo is very nice, works well, is documented well, but, is still a static blog framework. So no login, no comments, no true CMS.
Ghost
The next step of the journey was a run at Ghost. I didn’t make it very far without the first snag. Ghost doesn’t currently support Node latest. Ghost as of right now (2016-09-19) “supports LTS Node versions: ~0.10.0 || ~0.12.0 || ^4.2.0“. Node latest is 6.6.0, and Node 6 will become LTS (planned) next month. Otherwise Ghost has looked very good so far: It’s based on Node, has a deployment system built out, uses stable (if not quite modern) tools (Ember.js and Handlebars), and is fully open source, and run by a company touting 100% transparency. So, not supporting the latest version of Node isn’t a huge issue, but coupled with Ember and Handlebars being a bit dated, I’ve decided to try other options before coming back.
Random blogs I didn’t try
Bolt
If Bolt was Node or another language which I want to learn and code in, then I would try it right now. However, since I don’t actually want to setup a PHP server, I’m going to put this off for later. Bolt is driven by Silex/Symfony, which is (in my opinion) the best way to build a site in PHP. But right now I’m still holding out hope for a blogging software based either on Node, or a language that I have interest in learning.
It’s now getting late, time to go with Hexo for a little longer…