It’s six months since I sent out a newsletter. And, sadly, I don’t think that’s anywhere near the longest gap I’ve had between mailings. I wonder how I can get better at this.
Anyway, last time I wrote I was debating with myself about which project I would devote my time to. I never really reached a decision on that. So I’m still juggling a number of different things.
GitHub Actions Essentials
Marketing continues on the book I published last year. You’ll recall that I was interviewed for Software Engineering Radio about GitHub Actions. I thought that would be the last I would hear from them, but I forgot that the podcast was connected to the IEEE. Towards the end of last year, I heard from Gavin (who had interviewed me for the podcast) telling me that extracts from our conversation were going to be published in the IEEE’s Software magazine. The article appeared in their Jan-Feb 2024 issue and you can read it online (if you’re not already tired of reading me banging on about GitHub Actions).
In related news, I made some improvements to the Perl development workflows that I spoke about in Toronto last summer and finally got around to writing a blog post about them.
GitHub Pages Essentials
One of the potential projects on last year’s list was a follow-up to GitHub Actions Essentials which will be called GitHub Pages Essentials. Anyway, I’ve been making progress on that and I expect it to be published in a couple of months. Such a lot of my time currently seems to be spent working with GitHub Pages. I’m sure I must be one of the biggest users of the feature :-)
Perl Web Advice
I’ve just published another new blog post. This one is about how CGI programs aren’t anywhere nearly as dead as the Perl community would like to think they are. There are still plenty of people out there working under constraints (either real or imagined) which means they’re still deploying their web applications in CGI environments and cutting themselves off from over twenty years of technological improvements in how we deploy web apps.
I think that most of the problem comes down to education. So I’m resurrecting a project from about seven years ago where I was planning a web site that would talk about best practices for the development and deployment of Perl web applications. The site already exists (there’s not much there though) at web.perlhacks.com. I’d welcome any input you might have.
Update: I was writing this newsletter last night - just after I had published that blog post. This morning I’ve woken up to many comments defending CGI programs and asking what I’ve got against them. It seems clear that the argument for writing PSGI programs instead of CGI programs hasn’t been made strongly enough or clearly enough. So I guess that’s my next blog post sorted out!
Aphra
The subjects in this email are all a lot more intertwined than it might appear. The success of GitHub Actions Essentials has led to me thinking seriously about GitHub Pages Essentials. And Perl Web Advice sits at the intersection between my interest in GitHub Pages and wanting to steer people away from dated development and deployment techniques. And resurrecting Perl Web Advice has reactivated my interest in Aphra.
What’s Aphra? I hear you ask. Well, I’m glad you did, because I’m going to tell you.
As I said above, I use GitHub Pages a lot. And GitHub Pages is a tool for creating and publishing static web sites. And the best way to create static web sites is to use a static site generator.
Now, the default static site generator that’s baked into GitHub Pages is Jekyll. I’ve tried many times to understand Jekyll, but there’s something about it that just doesn’t match with how my brain works. I always end up with a site that doesn’t quite work how I’d like it to.
So about seven years ago (and it’s possible that Perl Web Advice was the site that pushed me into it) I did what any self-respecting geek would do and wrote my own tool (because that’s the only way you can guarantee it works exactly how you want it to work, right?)
[Quick sidebar to discuss the name: I wanted to call it Hyde so I could make jokes about it being uglier but more powerful than Jekyll. But Python had beaten me to it. I considered the names of a couple of other characters from Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde, but, finally, settled on Aphra to commemorate Aphra Behn, a woman who more people should know about.]
Anyway, I’ve been using it on a few sites for several years now. I’ve made a few improvements and I’m pretty happy with how it works. I should probably start encouraging more people to use it.
Maybe I should set up a web site for it. Does anyone know of a good static site generator? :-)
George and the Smart Home
I’ve put together a simple marketing web site for my children’s book, George and the Smart Home. Now you can see what the first dozen or so pages look like before you buy a copy.
Interesting links
Enough about me. Let’s finish with a few links to things that I’ve found interesting recently.
Will You Lose Your Job To AI? Curtis Poe is usually well worth reading and this piece about the effects that AI will have on the job market is no exception
Will Sowman - I’ve published a couple of books by a local author. One on prompt engineering and one on how to get out of the rat race and start freelancing
The Odds and Ends of History - I first met James when we were both part of the skeptics/atheist/rationalist movement in the 2000s. I was an occasional contributor to his much-missed podcast, The Pod Delusion. Now he’s writing a weekly newsletter on Substack. And it’s really interesting stuff
Introducing Sora - I expect you’ve all seen OpenAI’s impressive video-generating tool. But here’s a link in case anyone has missed it
That’s all for now. Hopefully, it won’t be another six months before my next newsletter.
Cheers,
Dave…