Colas.Nahaboo.net - site

A new version of the site for 2026, in Zola

2026-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

I said</a> that I wanted to migrate this web site to a SSG</a> (Static Site Generator). And, after 5 years of procrastination, Ta-Da! here is the new site!

Initially, I was planning to use Hugo</a>, since I love coding in Go, and was not planning to learn Rust (Hugo is coded in Go and Zola in Rust), but I finally chose Zola</a> over Hugo for many reasons:

Zola has basically all the performance advantages of Hugo, and is also a single binary, with no need for databases, docker, snap, flatpak...</li>

Zola is opinionated. This is very important for me, I love more and more the systems were there is "only one way to do it". Needless to say, I hate perl, and I love Go.</li>

Moving to Github

2021-12-10T00:00:00+00:00

Warning: I will move all the sources I maintained on my own mercurial web instance in hg.colas.nahaboo.net</code> to my GitHub repositories: https://github.com/ColasNahaboo/
I have thus redirected the non-functional hg.colas.nahaboo.net</code> to this page.
The move will be gradual, I started with rsync-incr</a>, and I hope to have finished before the end of 2021. Please ask me is you do not see yet your favorite source there.
The reason is that Debian has phased out most of what the web tools for mercurial rely on (python2, wsgi, ...), and thus my web hg repository was broken. And since I wanted anyways to move it to GitHub, it is not worth repairing it.
How to move mercurial (hg) directories to GitHub🔗</a></h2> As my hg repositories were very simple (no branches, I tend to use cloned repos than branches), what I do to migrate a repository foo</code> to github: I used hg-fast-export</a></li> I converted the hg repo of foo</code> to a local git repository of the same name, with the main hg branch mapped to github default main</code> instead of the script default of master</code></li> I created an empty repository foo</code> on github (no files such as README.md, LICENSE, ...)</li> I added it as origin to my local git repo</li> I deleted my hg repo, and git-pushed my local git repo (which became my working repo) to github. Plus I redirected the old hgweb repo urls to the new github repo adress.</li> </ul> I.e. as actual bash commands: repo=foo # the name of the repo to convert hg=~/hg # where are my local hg repos git=~/git # where are my local git repos hfe=/opt/fast-export # where is my copy of hg-fast-export.sh ghn=ColasNahaboo # my name on github mkdir $git/$repo cd $git/$repo git init $hfe/hg-fast-export.sh -r "$hg/$repo" -M main -n "$git/$repo" git branch -M main git checkout main git remote add origin git@github.com:$ghn/$repo.git # Warning: for this last step, the github repo must exist and be empty git push -u origin main</code></pre>
A New version of the site for 2021 2020-12-27T00:00:00+00:00 A big change is planned for this site in 2021: I am going to abandon the Foswiki engine for it, to pursue my recent goal of going back to the web roots. Basically, it a quest that relies more on: Fast rendering by no rendering at all: pre-compiling the site pages into static HTML+CSS+JS pages: the JAMstack</a> approach.</li> What I call a LAUW approach (Linux Apache Unix-utilities Web Standards) instead of the traditional LAMP</a>. Using the full strengths of Linux, Apache, the GNU Unix utilities, and the modern web standards (HTML5, CSS4, JS ES6) now that Internet Explorer is at last dead. This means not using software libraries (e.g: JQuery) and processors (e.g: Saas) that were designed to remedy to the poor state of some browsers.</li> Using Markdown for text editing</li> Using ultra stable and reliable technologies. I want to use things that will still work in 10 years, not the fad-of-the-day javascript framework that will be obsolete in 6 months, or that will break compatibility on each update.</li> Technical: And that do not try to be friendly to non-technical authors and admins, as I will be the sole admin and editor.</li> </ul> Now🔗</a></h2> So now (December 2020), I am still using Foswiki</a>, but progressively prototyping on it the features I will try to implement later: A simplified skin, with all the "wiki-ism" (everything editable) removed. As you can see I got rid of the left toolbar, to keep only the top banner with its sections (Code/Surf/Blog) menu on the logo and minimal tools on the right</li> Editing contents in Markdown instead of the Foswiki syntax: I now do not use the Foswiki system to edit topics, but desktop-edit via marktext</a>.</li> Having all the post sharing a common Form, so that the fields of this form can be easily converted to YAML as used as frontmatter (metadata) in modern Markdown-based systems.</li> But still using all the Foswiki power for the site admin and non-content topics (indexes,...)</li> </ul> The idea is to migrate progressively the contents into a form (Markdown + Frontmatter) usable in a modern static web generator like Hugo, while adapting Foswiki to use this content form, preparing a future migration. I have developed the details of what this means in my post on the Foswiki site: Foswiki for non-wiki web sites</a> Spring 2021🔗</a></h2> After I retire, at the end of February 2021, I will have more time to ditch Foswiki and implement the site on a new engine. It will probably be a static website generator, most probably Hugo</a>, but maybe also Zola</a> Eleventy</a>, or Gasby</a>, and incorporating ideas of the myriad of other ones</a>. Summer 2021🔗</a></h2> I will then probably replace progressively various components of this system by ones that I will handcraft optimally to incorporate all the ideas I have been toying with during all these years: the HTML+CSS+JS layout, the tag/category system, the search engine, the comment engine, the editing process... Later...🔗</a></h2> And I may even at some time create a totally new web engine system, who knows? Or code a wiki replacement: a collaborative editing site based on the concepts learned via this experiment. About this site 2020-07-26T00:00:00+00:00 See also: About Me</a></li> Contact me</a></li> </ul> Well, this is what you would expect of a personal site. Basically, it is a place to show the world what I did, I do, and I want to do. And maybe, if I ever develop some missing writing skills, I will be able to convey what I was, I am, and want to be... I only started to fully develop this site in 2008, as I was not confortable with the (what I saw as) selfish "personal web/blog" method of communcation, prefering communities like mailing lists, forums, wikis. Alas, my discovery of SUP surfing in 2009 has eaten all my free time and frozen this site... I hope it will change! Technical🔗</a></h2> This site is made since 2026</a> with: Zola</a> for the SSG (Static Site Generator) engine</li> Apollo</a> for the theme, with some customizations</li> Giscus</a> for the commenting system</li> Goaccess</a> for the stats</li> </ul> A New Version of the site for 2020 2020-07-26T00:00:00+00:00 After 10 years of neglect, it is time for a new start of this site, because: I am going to retire in early 2021 (in 6 months), and I will have now time to properly maintain a personal site</li> I am feeling the need to archive in a central place all the contents I scatter in various different places, if only for the selfish reason to be able to retreive them more easily</li> I was toying with the idea of going to a static web site, as it is now in vogue, and it has a kind of nostalgia for me as I started my web sites as static sites anyways. But by looking at the existing solutions, I was not convinced by them, as a lot seemed to naively solve the 80% easy part of the problem, and them struggle without any clear vision on how to solve the 20% hard part... a classic situation.</li> </ul> I thus decided to keep on using Foswiki</a> (v2.1.6), as it is now quite mature, and thus stable: I like building on solid, time-tested fundations that will not change every month. And let's be honest, it is both extremely powerful and incredibly reliable. I am just tweaking it for using it as a public site (one author with all admin rights, and read-only viewers), rather than the standard wiki setup of many authors, all able to edit contents, with some able to also admin rights. My postulate is that a dynamic web site like a wiki, with proper caching, has all the advantages of a static web site, but is more practical to maintain (although more complex to implement). I will detail my views on how to website-ize a wiki in future posts, but for now, on 2020-07-26 at noon French time, let go live! Welcome to my (new) world! Colas. Migration to Foswiki 2015-10-18T00:00:00+00:00 At last, I found the motivation to work again on this site that I have left dormant since 2009. And I start with a long deserved migration of the engine from the old TWiki system to the superb Foswiki WIki engine. Just installing a new Foswiki, and copying the data seem to provide a working base, I will then work on fixing the minor bugs and designing a new look in the following weeks.

Later...🔗</a></h2>
And I may even at some time create a totally new web engine system, who knows?</p>
Or code a wiki replacement: a collaborative editing site based on the concepts learned via this experiment.</p>

Technical 🔗</a></h2>
This site is made since 2026</a> with:</p>

Zola</a> for the SSG (Static Site Generator) engine</li>
Apollo</a> for the theme, with some customizations</li>
Giscus</a> for the commenting system</li>
Goaccess</a> for the stats</li> </ul>

Colas.Nahaboo.net - site

A new version of the site for 2026, in Zola

Moving to Github

A New version of the site for 2021

About this site

A New Version of the site for 2020

Migration to Foswiki

Colas.Nahaboo.net - site

A new version of the site for 2026, in Zola

Moving to Github

A New version of the site for 2021

Later...🔗</a></h2> And I may even at some time create a totally new web engine system, who knows?</p> Or code a wiki replacement: a collaborative editing site based on the concepts learned via this experiment.</p>

About this site

Technical🔗</a></h2> This site is made since 2026</a> with:</p> Zola</a> for the SSG (Static Site Generator) engine</li> Apollo</a> for the theme, with some customizations</li> Giscus</a> for the commenting system</li> Goaccess</a> for the stats</li> </ul>

A New Version of the site for 2020

Migration to Foswiki

Later...🔗</a></h2>
And I may even at some time create a totally new web engine system, who knows?</p>
Or code a wiki replacement: a collaborative editing site based on the concepts learned via this experiment.</p>

Technical 🔗</a></h2>
This site is made since 2026</a> with:</p>

Zola</a> for the SSG (Static Site Generator) engine</li>
Apollo</a> for the theme, with some customizations</li>
Giscus</a> for the commenting system</li>
Goaccess</a> for the stats</li> </ul>