Python Rocks! and other rants

Weblog of Kent S Johnson

#71 2006-03-31 08:27:19

Switching to Firedrop2

I finally switched this blog from PyDS and Python Community Server to Firedrop2 and static hosting at my ISP.

I made the switch because PyDS wasn't working well for me. It was always more complex than I really needed, even when I was blogging regularly. Writing infrequently, this became more of a problem.

Worse, for some reason PyDS stopped working. First the Upstreaming page started showing a traceback, then the ReST formatter broke. Now it is so broken that I can't even upload a final post redirecting to my new blog.

I don't know what broke it; I rarely use Python 2.3 any more, which is where all the PyDS stuff is installed, but maybe I upgraded some package that it uses. I could probably track it down but it doesn't seem worth it. The few times I looked at the PyDS code it was hard to find what I needed - it uses a plugin architecture that makes it hard to trace through the code.

A few other problems: PyDS and PyCS both can be slow to respond. PyCS occasionally stops responding. I shouldn't complain too much about a free service, but still...

So when Firedrop2 came out it seemed like time for a change. I want my blog files on my computer in text format, not in a database or on an external server. Static hosting on my ISP is just fine, thank you. I don't need to run an embedded server. So Firedrop2 fits my preferences.

Anyway it seems to be working fine, maybe I'll even start writing again :-) I have found a few minor problems with Firedrop2 but the code is easy to understand and fix and the developers are receptive to help.