--- /dev/null
+---
+postid: 002
+title: The Tar Pit: technicalities
+author: Lucian Mogoșanu
+date: July 27, 2013
+tags: asphalt, tech
+---
+
+<p style="text-align: right">
+*[So I’ve erased myself, replaced my mind, it's a clean slate][1]*</p>
+
+I would argue that the tools used to create some arbitrary kind of art, or
+craft, are completely irrelevant. The argument is supported by past pieces of
+art, some of which were made in very rudimentary conditions, a fact which at
+the same time doesn't make them any less "artistic" than newer, more
+"sophisticated" creations. Some would even argue the opposite: that earlier art
+has more personality, since it involved more sweat and blood. This is of
+course bullshit, as there are many handcrafted works that look dull[^1] and
+some chaotic geometric shapes that can be described purely mathematically[^2].
+
+That is, tools are of little importance to the consumer, while they can make a
+big difference for the producer. Some hundreds of years ago people were writing
+using quill pens and parchments, while more recently Douglas Adams wrote on an
+Apple computer. While this makes no difference whatsoever to the reader, they
+helped the writers be more or less productive, given that quills and parchments
+are easier to use than clay tablets, although significantly slower than your
+modern keyboard. Sure, it's not that pencils are in any way "inferior" to
+computers; they're just different tools serving different purposes.
+
+<!--more-->
+
+## The eternal issues of Content Management Systems
+
+About nine months ago or so I felt that Wordpress was no longer the right tool
+for me. I had already known that it had its problems and I had used various
+palliatives that kind of worked, only not in the way I wanted.
+
+One of the smaller problems of Wordpress was its inner workings, that require a
+fully working, fully configured LAMP[^3] environment. There's not much to say
+about that, this kind of setup is now a de facto standard on the web. However,
+the really small stuff killed me. For example, pingbacks mysteriously stopped
+working without me even noticing once I changed the router in my internal
+network. The new router didn't support NAT loopback, while Wordpress was
+continuously making requests to the public IP address, making it impossible to
+reach itself[^4]. I solved the problem later by doing some DNS voodoo, but the
+fact remains that I was desperate about trying to fix a system that doesn't
+work reliably anyway[^5].
+
+Then there was that issue of spam. For a blog that got a comment per month or
+less, the old blog™ received a shitload of spam, so much that the (non-premium)
+Akismet queue couldn't handle it. This was frustrating me, since I was now
+spending more time doing moderation and checking for false positives than
+doing, you know, the important stuff.
+
+Finally, all these problems led to performance issues. After attempting some
+holistic server-side optimizations, I had to get a new server to ramp up
+loading time. I also tried some stricter security measures such as IP banning,
+but again, this incurred a lot of overhead from my side, and mind you, I can't
+say I find the idea of being a sysadmin too attractive.
+
+## The zen of static site generation
+
+About nine months ago, I realized that a static blog would solve all these
+problems and pose some others. On one hand, a static site loads fast, has a
+simpler design, which makes it a lot easier to configure and customize, and it
+eliminates comment spam by design. Since I'm into Haskell, Hakyll seemed like a
+good idea, even though there are other pretty good alternatives out there.
+
+On the other hand comments, I admit, are kind of a big issue. For a while, I
+looked into third party commenting systems, or writing my own, or even using
+the one from Wordpress, but I realized this would bring back the spam
+nightmares I had previously had with it. I also thought about proprietary
+alternatives such as Disqus, but Disqus is a service with terms that I don't
+necessarily agree with. So no, I wouldn't have them owning the comments of my
+readers.
+
+Therefore, I have given up comments altogether. Once the blog has a contact
+page, you'll have the option of commenting on my stuff by sending me an e-mail
+or a message on whatever social network I'm on. Moreover, feel free to link my
+posts to Reddit, Facebook, Twitter and whatever social network you're on, and
+drop me an e-mail if you feel like I should give my input. Other than that, I
+don't really feel like turning back to comment moderation, I think that I
+should focus on writing and not much more.
+
+## Die Sprache
+
+I'll end this post by mentioning that I deliberately chose English as the main
+language[^6] for The Tar Pit. I'm not a native, nor a particularly good English
+speaker or writer, hence this gives me the occasion to improve my skills and
+evolve, which was pretty much [my motivation][3] from the beginning.
+
+I am also hoping that, being written in one of the most widely spoken languages
+on the web, the blog's more obscure content will reach a bigger audience. I'm
+well aware that this could change. Maybe Simplified Chinese will become the new
+hot trend in five years from now, which means I'll just have to learn it and
+use it in writing.
+
+*As for why The Tar Pit, stay tuned, you'll find out soon. Really soon.*
+
+[^1]: There are those that call themselves "slow artists", who find great
+pleasure in spending tens of hours in making intricate, beautiful patterns,
+which can nowadays be reproduced by a computer in a matter of seconds. Both are
+awfully symmetric, both lack personality, thus rendering the whole "automatic
+versus handmade" debate useless.
+
+[^2]: Fractals, dynamical systems in general.
+
+[^3]: Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP
+
+[^4]: I documented this on [my previous blog][2] (in Romanian).
+
+[^5]: It's not that pingbacks are not reliable by themselves. It's that the
+XML-RPC protocol, or rather its implementation, is crappy. I agree that in
+theory pingbacks are a really cool idea meant to fire up discussions, but in
+practice they never seem to work quite right.
+
+[^6]: Maybe not the only one. I don't know, I guess we'll cross that bridge
+when we come to it.
+
+[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdAeqtw3KeQ
+[2]: http://lucian.mogosanu.ro/bricks/de-ce-nat-ul-e-o-idee-proasta "de ce nat-ul e o idee proastă"
+[3]: /posts/001-introduction.html "The Tar Pit: an introduction"
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