Re: Web site, SSI, SSH, and Windows SCP

[Donovan Rebbechi <elflord@panix.com>]

> "nice idea, but". It's a nice idea but it will break on mirror servers that
> can't do SSI 
> (although you've said that's not a problem at the moment). 

and it's unlikely to be a problem in the forseable future.

> is also difficult (IMO) to do much more than simple file inclusion so, for
> instance, it's a pain to do a navigation bar with the current page in bold
> or something.

True.

> A while ago I wrote a set of scripts and an auto-generating Makefile to
> build my own website, and have also used it for a few clients when I was
> doing freelance web design. It just uses GNU `make', `bash', and `m4' the
> macro processor. No SSI or other server tricks needed.

This is a nice way of doing things. Indeed, I used to do something similar
to maintain the site. The advantage is that your scripts take care of the
markup, so you don't need the client *or* the server to do any work. I
could see this being very useful if you're developing pages for a server
that doesn't allow you to use any advanced features.

The disadvantage is that it's non standard, and it's something else that
the developers need to learn. I found that noone had the patience to learn
how my maintenance system worked. In fact the reason why I moved *TO* SSI
was due to requests by some people who expressed interest in working on
the site.

But that doesn't mean that I'm not interested. I would be interested
in knowing the technical details of how you did this. It's something that
we could use later on if necessary. Right now, SSI seems to be working
fine.

Cheers,
-- 
Donovan