NB: this post was written by ChatGPT.
If you’ve been a regular reader of my blog, you might have noticed some changes around here recently. Don’t worry, it’s not just you! I’ve updated my blog to a new platform, something that’s been a journey of exploration, experimentation, and ultimately, satisfaction.
Let’s rewind a bit. The world of blogging platforms is vast and varied, each with its unique strengths and challenges. My goal was to find a platform that aligned with my specific needs. These were:
- Writing posts in Markdown: As a fan of simplicity and efficiency, I wanted a platform that supported writing posts in Markdown. It’s an easy-to-use syntax that streamlines the writing process and keeps the focus on the content, not the formatting.
- Automated blog and page creation: While I appreciate the beauty of raw HTML and CSS, I wanted a platform that took care of the heavy lifting so I could focus on what I love - writing and engaging with all of you.
- Platform independence: I didn’t want my content to be locked into a specific platform. The ability to change the site in the future, if need be, was important to me.
- Hassle-free hosting: To avoid dealing with the headaches of security and updating, I wanted a platform that didn’t require me to manage my own hosting.
In my search, I tried out Ghost, a sleek and visually appealing platform. While it was beautiful to look at, I found it to be fairly restrictive for my needs. I also experimented with Squarespace and Wix, popular choices in the blogging world. However, they too fell short of my specific requirements.
After much exploration, I finally found a match in the combination of a Jekyll blog with a Minimal Mistakes theme, all hosted as a GitHub Pages page. It’s the Goldilocks of blogging platforms for me - just right.
Jekyll, a simple, blog-aware, static site generator, checked all my boxes. It supports Markdown, automates blog and page creation, and isn’t tied to a specific platform. The Minimal Mistakes theme added a layer of elegance and readability to the mix, aligning with my preference for a clean and minimalistic design. Hosting the blog as a GitHub page took care of the hosting concerns, providing a secure and updated environment for my blog.
Transitioning my old blog to this new tech stack was a learning experience, but the result has been rewarding. I’m excited about this new chapter and look forward to continuing to share my thoughts, experiences, and insights with you all.
Post script, by Erkin: I used OpenAI’s web-enabled ChatGPT4 to generate this post. It first scraped my existing blog posts and then wrote the above post. Overall, I think it did a fairly good job of capturing my “conversational, detailed, and engaging” tone. I used the following prompt to generate the post:
could you help me write a new blog post for my blog? first review some of my blog posts at https://eotles.com/blog/
then write a post about my updated blog. the focus should be on the technical choice of platform. I chose to use a Minimal-Mistakes themed (https://mmistakes.github.io/minimal-mistakes/) Jekyll blog (https://jekyllrb.com) hosted as a GitHub page. I conducted a fairly exhaustive search of different blogging platforms and came to this combination as it met my requirements which where:
- writing posts in markdown
- automated blog and page creation - didn’t want to have to write raw html or css
- not having content locked into a specific platform - wanted to be able to change the site in the future - if need be
- not having to deal with my own hosting - avoiding security and updating headaches
I tried https://ghost.org which was very pretty but was fairly restrictive and I tried square space and wix. Eventually I settled on this tech stack and converted my old blog to this one
