Denton Jacobs

Chicago-based hack of a developer, currently working in the financial services space.

Elsewhere: Twitter

Denton Jacobs

IndieWeb Projects I use

A home-rolled Node app originally based strongly on Camel from Casey Liss, but highly modified that I've dubbed Koala.

I've previously used WordPress and Jekyll, and played around with Known, but wanted some experience writing Node and building out functionality myself.

Things are working pretty well, but I need a better way to handle quick posting. My previous workflow required Git commits, requiring too much friction for providing regular posts. I’ve added basic Micropub functionality for simple, text-based updates, but still cannot post images or any other post types.

What’s Next

I’m struggling to determine my next step forward. I’m a complete and total hack when it comes to my current site. I’m not truly a Node developer, but I have made some real progress. Part of me wants to just switch to an IndieWeb tricked out WordPress install, because it will more easily and simply get me the possibly to get Webmentions, media Micropub posts, replies, likes and reposts. Those are all things I have to learn and implement personally if I want to get it on my site. I don’t really want to deal with maintaining WordPress, and I know nothing about Gutenberg, but I also feel … overwhelmed, or maybe, lost … in implementing all of those items for my current site.

Additionally, all my posts are simple markdown files with a YAML header, basically in the Jekyll style. I have no idea, at this time, how I plan to handle mentions, replies to my posts, likes, reposts, etc. And what if I want to add stuff like food I eat, drinks I consume, workouts I complete, etc. Just more markdown files? What about feeds for these various types? It seems like a database would be nice, but I get the arguments for a database an anti-pattern, and I have no desire to pay more to run a database I don’t need. And yet…

As such, I’m trying to decide, exactly, what’s next.