On the blog again

Just can't wait to get on the blog again.
The life I love is makin' recipes with my friends
And I can't wait to get on the blog again
On the blog again
Goin' places that I've never been
Seein' things that I may never see again
And I can't wait to get on the blog again.

Yep, on the blog again

So here I am blogging again.

After more or less one year without blogging it seems now the right time to blog again.

And, as you may have noticed, I have redesigned this site. It's now easier for me to blog, because I have a new publishing software (of my own). Main changes include:

  • A new publishing platform makes things easier for me. It's powered by NetBeans, DocBook, Ant and MarkdownJ
  • I don't use Pivot Blog anymore, nor any other commercial or open source blogging software. Existing alternatives are either too complex (requiring a database) or too rigid for my needs (I can't use vi key bindings, for instance).
  • Google Ads have been removed (Google Analytics may reappear in the future, though).
  • All existing content should remain the same, including existing bookmarks.
  • My recipes should be easier to print, since there's a new printer-aware CSS markup for those.
  • New tagging mechanism is more powerful than the previous one.

Lessons learned

Things I have learned during the migration of my site include:

  • I think it's a good idea to have a publishing software of your own (so does Tim Bray, by the way). This allows you to keep strict control on your content, and index it as you like.
  • DocBook is simply excellent. It's worth learning how to customize DocBook XSL as it pays the effort. Content indexing is well indexed.
  • All HTML and CSS standards are a pain in the neck. Even doing simple things is very complex. How is it that there's no HTML tag for multi-columns, for example? We're now in the XXI Century, for God's sake!!

Scheme IDE news, NetBeans DreamTeam, new recipes

As I said previously I keep on working on the Scheme editor using the NetBeans platform. I'm currently working in Scheme indentation.

I started using Schliemann but this is in low mainteinance mode now. Existing alternatives are the NetBeans Lexer or the Generic Languages Framework (which is under development).

And I've chosen NetBeans Lexer because of stability. So basically during last year I've changed things in the Scheme IDE from a plain old Syntax object to Schliemann to Lexer.

By the way, I've been honored to form part of the NetBeans DreamTeam. I didn't expect this, and I hope I can be up to the task.

So during the following months I'll start blogging again about how to build a Scheme IDE with the NetBeans Platform, using now the NetBeans Lexer.

So keep tuned for new content.

Cheers, Antonio

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