Rewriting the engine

Published
2016-02-10
Last modified
2016-02-10

I plan on rewriting this site again sometime in the future. Specifically, I will be writing a custom static site engine using Python 3 and Jinja.

This will be the seventh complete rewrite/migration of this site, and since I will be writing a custom engine, this should be the last as I will no longer have to wrestle with the restrictions of any "premade" "easy to use" frameworks.

This spontaneous decision was motivated by, once again, my struggles trying to get Hugo (the static site generator used currently) to do something which Hugo simply could not do. This taught me a lesson that I have already learned many times over and that I should not have ignored in the first place. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Complex tasks are complex; wrapping them in a pretty framework might make some things easier, but conversely it makes other things impossible. It's better to make small parts that each do small things well. Putting together the pieces is more work, but you will be able to do complex tasks as well as simple tasks.

I have been really, really bad at not breaking links during my previous migrations. This time, I intend to keep the old links for a reasonable period of time to allow any links or bookmarks to be fixed as needed, if any links need to be changed.

This is also something that won't happen in the immediate future. I am currently engaged in a different full rewrite, of Animanager, which will be taking up my time.