the emperors new blog backend

For n-th time I updated my blog backend. Did I write more after updating it last time? No. Did I spend more time tinkering than writing? Guilty. Is it fun? Yes.

Never having been a frontend guy, I always opted for static site generators (SSG). Hugo was the first one I used, but I found it hard to customize, and too complex for my needs.

In 2025, I wrote a few SSGs myself in Python. I always come back to this pattern when building one:

• scaffold a base html template and css
• write a build script
• make the build occur on changes with tools like watchdog or inotify-tools
• allow for partial content through templating, eg. a header or main section
• added support for static content like fonts and images
• added a small cli to generate post boilerplate with name, date, and slug
• updated build script to replicate folder structure
• use front matter to build tag overviews
• minify images and remove exif data

With only a couple posts written, changes got built pretty quickly (maybe not lightning fast ), and the amount of code went down to a minimum.

I also wrote a more complex SSG for my pet project at that time, a wiki for the game Overlooting. I might write a separate post about that! Of course, there is still room for more.

In this iteration, after reading this blog post, I decided to try pandoc again. I remember briefly toying around with it before going to university in 2020. Maybe it was the prior week of having no coffee, but being seriously caffeinated made so thankful for the tool and the extensive documentation. Good documentation is rare, and I appreciate it very much.

pandoc fulfills all my requirements as of now, and minimizes my blog programming effort even further. It feels like the perfect tool for the job. The rest of my scripts come in at ~200 LOC, and makes extension easy.

Until my next rewrite.