As many here know, I wrote a book on technical blogging for "hackers and founders" (http://pragprog.com/book/actb/technical-blogging, now complete). In it I included Jekyll/Octopress as one of the available options, but ultimately suggested WordPress to most readers. WordPress, with its unlimited number of features, allows you to set it up quickly and start writing. Jekyll/Octopress requires you to write quite a bit of code if you want to obtain the same level of customization that I recommend for professional blogs. It's a growing ecosystem, and one to monitor closely, but at this stage I feel it would be a disservice to my readers to blindly recommend a somewhat Spartan system that requires hacking if you want to add, say, a list of most popular posts in the sidebar.
Your post is perfect for the HN crowd. But I think even among "techies", Jekyll/Octopress are the ideal solution for only a minority of people reading this.
Comments
As many here know, I wrote a book on technical blogging for "hackers and founders" (http://pragprog.com/book/actb/technical-blogging, now complete). In it I included Jekyll/Octopress as one of the available options, but ultimately suggested WordPress to most readers. WordPress, with its unlimited number of features, allows you to set it up quickly and start writing. Jekyll/Octopress requires you to write quite a bit of code if you want to obtain the same level of customization that I recommend for professional blogs. It's a growing ecosystem, and one to monitor closely, but at this stage I feel it would be a disservice to my readers to blindly recommend a somewhat Spartan system that requires hacking if you want to add, say, a list of most popular posts in the sidebar.
Which is exactly why it goes on Hacker News. I would never in a lifetime recommend it to my mother.
Your post is perfect for the HN crowd. But I think even among "techies", Jekyll/Octopress are the ideal solution for only a minority of people reading this.
Certainly. Hopefully my post will help them judge whether they are part of that minority or not.