---
layout: post
title: Hello, World (from Jekyll)
---

Here goes another migration of my sparse content from the past 8 years.  This time, I'm giving up my Wordpress instance that I've migrated around 3 or 4 times (from wordpress.com, then Dreamhost, then Linode, then tortois.es), and completely failed to migrate this time (I neglected to back up Wordpress' MySQL tables).  I still have an old XML backup, but it's such a crufty mess at this point that I'd rather start fresh and import in some old content.

Wordpress is a fine platform and it produces some beautiful results.  However, I feel like it is very heavy and complex for what I need, and I have gotten got myself into many train-wrecks and rabbit-holes trying to manage aspects of its layout and behavior and media handling.

My nose is already buried in Emacs for most else that I write.  It's the editor I work most quickly in.  I'm already somewhat familiar with git.  So, I am giving [Jekyll](http://jekyllrb.com/) a try.  Having a static site pre-generated from Markdown just seems like it would fit my workflow better, and not require me to switch to a web-based editor.  I'm going to have to learn some HTML and CSS anyway.

(I phrase this as if it were a brilliant flash of insight on my part.  No, it's something I started in July and then procrastinated on until now, when my Wordpress has been down for months.)

A vaguely relevant [issue](https://github.com/joyent/smartos-live/issues/275) just steered me to the existence of [TRAMP](https://www.gnu.org/software/tramp/) which allows me to edit remote files in Emacs.  I just did *C-x C-f* `/ssh:username@whatever.com:/home/username` from a stock Emacs installation, and now I'm happily editing this Markdown file, which is on my VPS, from my local Emacs.  For some reason, I find this incredibly awesome, even though things like remote X, NX, RDP, and sshfs have been around for quite some time now.  (When stuff starts screwing up, M-x tramp-clean-up-all-connection seems to help a bit.)

I collect lots of notes and I enjoy writing and explaining, so why don't I maintain a blog where I actually post more often than once every 18 months?  I don't really have a good answer.  I just know that this crosses my mind about once a week.  But okay, Steve Yegge, you get [your wish](https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/you-should-write-blogs) but only because I found [what you wrote](https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/tour-de-babel#TOC-C-) about C++ to be both funny and appropriate.

Here's a script I was using to convert links from some other failed-Markdown-conversion from earlier:
{% highlight python %}
import re, sys

def repl(m):
    return "[%s](%s)" % (m.group(2), m.group(1))

urlRe = re.compile(r'<a href="([^"]+)">([^<]+)</a>')
for line in sys.stdin:
    n = 1
    while (n > 0): (line, n) = urlRe.subn(repl, line)
    sys.stdout.write(line)
{% endhighlight %}

It mostly just turns HTML links to Markdown ones.  Simple, but I find it useful.  Someone else probably knows a Python one-liner to do it.  Whatever.

Test code stuff:
{% gist 8874941 %}

To-do list items:
- Learn some freaking CSS. (Or [SASS](http://sass-lang.com/)?)
- Read [Building a Blog with Jekyll](http://flippinawesome.org/2013/10/28/building-a-blog-with-jekyll/)
- Install markdown mode for Emacs.
- Figure out how to sensibly get image thumbnails.  (Or, [do it from Flickr](http://blog.pixarea.com/2012/07/fetch-images-from-flickr-to-show-in-octopress-slash-jekyll)? Or [here](http://www.marran.com/tech/integrating-flickr-and-jekyll/))