I started my first blog in December 2004. But that was not my first website. I published that one in August 1996. At first, just a pure HTML website, with almost no JavaScript or CSS, lots of <FONT> and <FRAME> and <MARQUEE> tags all over the place.
I actually used an extension of Microsoft Word 6.0 to create those first webpages. Hard to believe.
I want to write, hence it is time to start over. I build that first blog using Movable Type, and then I migrated it to WordPress around 2006. I have been a faithful WordPress user since then. But I am tired of it. Too much infrastructure for just a few words.
So for this new one, I choose a simpler option. Pure text. Just like my first website, this one will be pure HTML, and of all options, I chose Hugo as my platform of choice.
There are several things that I like about Hugo. To begin with, it is written in Go, it is thus portable and extremely fast. I like command-line tools written in Go.
Also, there are lots of nice themes available for Hugo (I am no designer, so I definitely need help with that.)
And last but not least, Hugo supports Markdown (of course) and Asciidoc. Since writing my first book I became a big fan of Asciidoc, and lately, of Asciidoctor.
I can write my prose in any text editor I like (this text was typed on Emacs, for example) and then I can deploy the result using scp. The simplest approach I could find.
There is a certain peace of mind when using simple tools that work well together. What developers usually call “the Unix way”, I guess.
I also like the “live preview” functionality of Hugo. Just write, save, and boom, the browser refreshes itself automatically. This is terrific.
I will be writing a new article here every week. There will be some technology, some personal thoughts, some stories. But no comments.
Thanks for reading.