Olssy, thanks for addressing my concerns here. I wasn't aware that we could mirror the files and make them available for download, however, I do think it would come with it's own share of problems.

Another thing to see here is speed and the easiness of backing up data. With a static site generator, there are only a few folders that you need to save for backups, while Drupal needs a backup of database and plugin data, among other things. Static site generators are also fast, really fast, and even the simplest of servers which have caching set up well can handle large traffic to a static site. 

I advocate for a static-site generator, though not Jekyll (Since it's painfully slow).


On Sat, Jan 11, 2014 at 1:54 AM, Olssy <olssy1@gmail.com> wrote:
Sorry to be such a pain about Drupal but I just want it to make sure it is being ruled out for the right reasons, the database it uses does not prevent it from generating static pages. Just like the Jekyll markdown files don't need to be mirrored neither does Drupal or its database, just the generated html files. I do like the Jekyll solution though just worried that it's a bit limited for the project.

Back to your question:
Do we need User roles?

If the site will ever be supporting user generated content through then I think this is a requirement but if UGC is to be offloaded elsewhere else and it's really just the static pages then I think the file system permissions should suffice.


On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 2:12 PM, Namanyay Goel <mail@namanyayg.com> wrote:
Static files rendering: 

If you change a single page, it will render that, and will render any related pages, such as home, tags, etc. Changes to the stylesheet make each page render again, which tremendously slows down development.


Using Drupal @Olssy:

It's already been established that we *need* something that doesn't need a database so it can be easily mirrored (on over 70 mirrors) and can be downloaded and stored by our users (in a pen drive, CD, etc). Also, I don't believe we need user roles?


On Sat, Jan 11, 2014 at 12:31 AM, Rey Dhuny <rey@spcshp.com> wrote:
> How often will the static files need to be rendered?

Off the top of my head (not in front of a computer), When a page is changed or added, the entire site is regenerated.

I could be mistaken. 

Sent from my silly iPhone

On 10 Jan 2014, at 18:58, "Clark Venable" <jclarkv@gmail.com> wrote:

How often will the static files need to be rendered? The greater the time interval between static file generation the less speed of engine matters. Or an I thinking about this wrong?

Clark Venable
--
Clark


On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 1:55 PM, Rey Dhuny <rey@spcshp.com> wrote:

Namanyay Goel:

Thank you for those stats!

Maybe they should be put on the wiki where we can compare performance under the proposed generators section?

> Hmm, Middleman might be overkill, but still I suggest we look into other static site generators, especially that can handle larger sites.

I very much agree, much more so since seeing looking at those stats. 

Rey

On 10 Jan 2014, at 18:49, Namanyay Goel <mail@namanyayg.com> wrote:

I couldn't find much - Except the multiple StackOverflow questions you find when searching 'Jekyll generation slow', and this Github issue: https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll/issues/1140, and my personal experience with using it (Use it on a blog with ~40 posts, generation time is from 8-12 seconds).

Hmm, Middleman might be overkill, but still I suggest we look into other static site generators, especially that can handle larger sites.

(Points of interest in the Github issue:

* Testing with jekyll build:
150 files - 20sec
300 files - 40sec
600 files - 130sec

* Testing jekyll build, 100 files, and using Jekyll-Bootstrap:
#1
real    0m18.725s
user    0m18.256s
sys 0m0.407s

#2
real    0m18.578s
user    0m18.124s
sys 0m0.423s

#3
real    0m18.467s
user    0m17.986s
sys 0m0.434s

* jekyll new performance:

posts
1 0.824s
100 2.644s
1000 25.071s
5000 186.715s
10000  536.904s)


On Sat, Jan 11, 2014 at 12:07 AM, Rey Dhuny <rey@spcshp.com> wrote:
> While Jekyll is indeed a choice, for larger sites, it's generation time is simply too long.

Are there any benchmarks or examples to validate this statement?

I would be very interested to see generation times comparing the proposed static site generators, especially for larger sites. 

I personally have never encountered such problems in my usage of Jekyll though they haven't been large, content heavy applications like will be the case for torproject.org. 

> (Someone suggested Middleman? It also has internationalization!)

I was somebody who suggested Middleman and indeed, it does have internationalisation baked in, though a concern I personally have is that it could potentially be _overkill_ for the application in this case. 

Thoughts?

Rey

On 10 Jan 2014, at 18:21, Namanyay Goel <mail@namanyayg.com> wrote:

While Jekyll is indeed a choice, for larger sites, it's generation time is simply too long. Development takes time on Jekyll, simply because of it's generation time. If we can offset that problem in some way, that would be great, otherwise I feel we should be looking at some other static site generator (Someone suggested Middleman? It also has internationalization!)

As for the debate about author's writing 'code', Markdown is easy to learn and use, and outputs semantic data. We really don't need a rich text editor of some sort, Markdown (Or similar languages) are good enough. 


On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 11:45 PM, Gvido Glazers <gvido.glazers@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello, Everyone!
Missed the introduction thread, so I'll just start with that:
I'm Gvido, and I'm currently based in Amsterdam.
My official job title is front-end developer, but in reality I do full-stack development with ruby or python.


Now, back on topic.
I'm also going to agree with the general sentiment that Jekyll is the way to go. It's stable, simple, widely used, easy to extend, and powerful.
Markdown is really easy to learn, I don't think content creators writing about Tor would have a problem grasping it.


On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 6:52 PM, William Papper <william@papper.me> wrote:
Definitely a +1 for Jekyll. There's no need to reinvent the wheel. While a custom solution or plain HTML may seem appealing at first (and would be great for a personal project), Jekyll lets us move much quicker and keeps everything relatively standardized. It also makes it easier for people to collaborate, since Jekyll is widely used.


On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 11:57 AM, Moritz Süß <moritz@moritzsuess.de> wrote:
Markdown is _very_ simple.

Let’s try to use these as long as possible for getting people familiarized with Markdown. We do not want to duplicate existing documentation efforts, and keep up-front investment for tools as low as possible in this project.

I hope I am correct in my understanding that we agree on a static website generator now, and kind-off agree on Jekyll.

Best
Moritz

Am 10.01.2014 um 17:35 schrieb Earl G <globallogins@gmail.com>:

Ok So Jeklly
a user guide for people that need to learn markdown to be able to contribute to the blog.

and the front of the site user friendly for anybody that wants to get started.

back of the site and deeper for the linux nerds and specialists that want to dig deeper.

job done



On 10 January 2014 17:32, Sam E. Lawrence <selbrit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 10:10 AM, Sean Rafferty <seanmrafferty@me.com> wrote:
But there are a lot of content writers in the world that just don’t know it well enough. 

Then they can learn. If someone wants to contribute to a solution to a problem as complex as privacy and security, then learning markdown / HTML should be a minor investment of their time. Basic HTML takes little time to learn, and will instantly boost the self-respect of anyone who wants to help Tor and other software projects. Setting a bar is worth it, IMO.

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