Re: [boost] New Boost Website: Open to Volunteers!

On 16/04/2022 21:48, Vinnie Falco via Boost wrote:

On Sat, Apr 16, 2022 at 12:39 PM Stefan Seefeld via Boost wrote:

...

making the new site more modular in its way to syndicate content coming from individual boost projects

We are adding a database

I would be opposed to any form of website which relies on a database, unless it is SQLite. I say this from bitter experience. Databases go wrong without maintenance and we've seen on many occasions in the past people happy to volunteer to do stuff for Boost for many years until they quietly disappear, then the thing limps on but becoming ever increasingly erratic and problematic, and then we have to go get people to start ringing other people and then we find said service was being run off some academic server and nobody ever knew about it and then academic people start accusing Boost of network intrusion etc etc. We could just avoid repeating all those past mistakes by not designing in a need for a database. I remind everybody here of my past travails with Boost's pre-github wiki and issue tracker. Let's not repeat that. Where my ideal would be at is a static site generator such as Hugo. Which is like what we've already got, except several generations newer and better technology. It can syndicate content from feeds just fine, you stick it on a five minute cronjob, it's designed to work well doing that. I'm not against databases, so long as it's a SQLite file and said file can get deleted at any time and it doesn't really matter. I used to use one for website visitor counters, as an example. I also think a github repo which acts as the content for the website would be a wise thing to retain. People can raise PRs, they can get approved, content appears on the website. I think that a good pattern to retain rather than yet another portal for reviewing and checking content. Niall