This was an interesting read for me today because, by coincidence, I spent some quality time yesterday trying to figure out how to go back to blogging, which I haven't done now in several years. My early blog was on Blogger then I switched to TypePad. Then I self-published. Then I went back to TypePad. I do wish I had always self-published because, while technically possible to consolidate content, it would take some work that I've never got around to doing.
So yesterday I was reviewing my options for rebooting my tech blogging, and went looking at the platforms. I was steering towards HashNode after reading the advice from another technical blogger to say to just focus on your content. It does look like a quality site for technical blogging. But for me a must-have is the ability to write off-line and it doesn't look like that is possible with HashNode. It has an API but it's WAY more complicated than is warranted and seem to exist just for the purpose of saying that it's technically possible to upload your content instead of using their online editor.
Another thing that happened yesterday is that after searching for over an hour, I was still unable to locate my old Blogger site where I was writing about computer vision some time around 2006. I've changed computers several times since then, and whatever notes I had did not make the transition to my newer workstations. So sad. Clearly this could happen even if you self-publish but I think it's less likely. I still have all of my original self-published blog articles, and those were from around the same time.
Anyway, yesterday I had settled on either using Blogger again, or using HashNode. But after reading this article and the HN discussions I'm not so sure. I am going to look back at my self-written SSG from ~2008, and see how hard it would be to have those same semantics in the cloud (wasn't an option back then). A static site is fine if you don't need the social and collaborative features.
Another thing I'll mention - in the context of the POSSE principle mentioned by others - is that IFTTT is like $5/month and seems well-suited to the POSSE approach of publishing.
So yesterday I was reviewing my options for rebooting my tech blogging, and went looking at the platforms. I was steering towards HashNode after reading the advice from another technical blogger to say to just focus on your content. It does look like a quality site for technical blogging. But for me a must-have is the ability to write off-line and it doesn't look like that is possible with HashNode. It has an API but it's WAY more complicated than is warranted and seem to exist just for the purpose of saying that it's technically possible to upload your content instead of using their online editor.
Another thing that happened yesterday is that after searching for over an hour, I was still unable to locate my old Blogger site where I was writing about computer vision some time around 2006. I've changed computers several times since then, and whatever notes I had did not make the transition to my newer workstations. So sad. Clearly this could happen even if you self-publish but I think it's less likely. I still have all of my original self-published blog articles, and those were from around the same time.
Anyway, yesterday I had settled on either using Blogger again, or using HashNode. But after reading this article and the HN discussions I'm not so sure. I am going to look back at my self-written SSG from ~2008, and see how hard it would be to have those same semantics in the cloud (wasn't an option back then). A static site is fine if you don't need the social and collaborative features.
Another thing I'll mention - in the context of the POSSE principle mentioned by others - is that IFTTT is like $5/month and seems well-suited to the POSSE approach of publishing.