allisona few weeks ago I decided I wanted to be in charge of my own bookmarking infrastructure, so I exported my bookmarks from pinboard and spent the afternoon writing ~500 lines of python/html/css/bash to make a lil bespoke database manager/static site generator. pleased with the results: https://bookmarks.decontextualize.com/ (there's no link to the feed on the page, but it does support RSS! check the metadata)
basically: I have a bookmarklet that copies the current URL and any selected text as a JSON object into my clipboard, a python script that reads from the clipboard and opens vim with the data so I can edit and add tags, then adds the data to the "database" (big json file lol), and another python script that builds static pages from the database by year and tag. all held together by a bash script that uploads the files to my static host at the end of the process
I like making one-off nameless static site generators to solve problems like this! over the past few years, whenever I find myself hemming and hawing over which tool to use for whatever web publishing task, the correct answer has almost always been "just make your own one-off nameless static site generator, it's really not that difficult"
Mark Nelson@aparrish I agree! I find this a lot easier/funner than using an existing one. This might be partly because I like coding more than figuring out config of other people’s code (and it’s often an excuse to try out some new tech). But I think also because I don’t usually need the full problem solved in generality, so solving my 5% of the full problem with most stuff hardcoded is not that hard.
Carl M. Johnson@aparrish my advice to people is:
Don’t try to write the next Jekyll or Hugo. It’s a crowded market and you can’t possibly break through.
Do write a simple SSG for yourself! It’s easy, and you’ll know exactly how it works when you’re done.