Post by @hl@social.lol

@hl When we needed a static site for https://shield.tib.eu I decided to go with Hugo since I've been wanting to learn it for a while, but I can echo that four months into my tenure I'm already doubting whether the abstraction is even worth it. I'm also already getting warnings that some of the stuff we're doing is deprecated. 🫤

@hl got to admit, I’m not looking forward to if it’s ever necessary to update Hugo (but my blog being so simple, so far so good).

@hl This is one of the big downsides of Hugo, however, as it happens, the host I use - Render.com - while it supports Hugo builds from Github, it's locked into an older version (0.124). There are some support forum entries on how to build with newer versions, but I figured it was just easier to lock my local version into the same one Render had, so I didn't have to worry about breaking changes. Not updating software is usually a bad thing, but with a static site generator, as long as it works, I don't need to use the latest version.

@michaeljoseph Yes, so I do the same thing with the hosting I use at https://www.statichost.eu/, but what catches me out is that my desktop OS updates to a newer version of Hugo, and then I can't preview and check it locally. In this case I've made the one paragraph change to one post, then only committed and pushed that change to the remote, and I'll save the version change for a later date.

@hl Ah, what's the desktop OS? I use Linux (Mint) so I just set the update manager to ignore updates to Hugo, after installing the same version as Render. I don't know if that's always an option with other OS.

@michaeljoseph I use FreeBSD, I could probably pin the package version - or just download the relevant version from GitHub as well as it's just a single binary anyway, but it's a faff.

@hl@social.lol Yes. This used to also cause me immense frustration and wasted so much time that eventually I gave up and moved to #blogmore, another SSG which is very reliable with great functionality, refreshing to use and painless to update.

https://www.yakshaving.co.uk/posts/reflections-hugo-github-netlify/

@andyc interesting that you also use org-mode files. That's one of the main reasons I use Hugo is, unlike most other SSGs, it supports org-mode files natively, and so far I've not needed anything more complicated to do an intermediate conversion to markdown files. Does Blogmore also support org-mode, or do you have to go via ox-hugo first?

@hl@social.lol Originally I used the native orgmode functionality in Hugo but found it missed something I happened to use once (tables maybe) so I just mindlessly joined the crowd and adopted ox-hugo.

Now I just use Markdown in Blogmore. Makes switching blogging platforms easier. Two markup languages and pesky syntax to remember but sometimes, less is more.

@andyc @hl@social.lol Oh now. I remember. It was flipping footnotes. In 20 years I had never used footnotes on my blog.

However, I became obsessed by the stupid thought I might absolutely need to add a footnotes one day in the dim and distant future so that's why I adopted ox-hugo.

Serial experimenter. Serial idiot.

@andyc

Serial experimenter. Serial idiot

I think that's called 'learning' 😂

I'm probably too wedded to org-mode, I also use it everyday at work for notes, and find the various inconsistent flavours of markdown, and the fact you can't interact with it (e.g. do sums in tables, shift rows and columns, headlines around) like org-mode super frustrating.

I guess I should look at creating the site directly from Emacs, I know there are various packages for that. The issue is then you lose the ability to deploy from a repo, as Emacs scripting is not really a commonly available runtime.

@hl@social.lol Yes. Thankfully I was aware of but somehow managed to resist the lure of org-publish.

https://orgmode.org/manual/Publishing.html

@hl@social.lol Joking apart, I think this statement re. 'serial experimenter' is very true.

I think that's called 'learning'

Not everything I pursued and investigated was necessarily useful for my day job but it was all knowledge accrued. Not all of it was immediately useful. Some of my investigations (eventually) worked and some had to be discarded but it was all useful information.

There were many times when colleagues/customers told me 'Setting up a load balanced Web server in the cloud with SSL would take 4 months' when I knew damn fine it would take 5 days (even allowing for change control, network, security, corporate overhead etc).

I knew this because I had done it myself. Never blag a blagger :-)

@hl I think it was when they randomly dropped support for symlinks that I gave up on Hugo.

@benjamineskola I have this sinking feeling that at some point, without warning, they'll drop org-mode support, which is the main, but niche, reason I picked Hugo over other SSGs, and then I'll have to find some other solution anyhow.