Qubyte Codes

Philosophy

I have tried to build this website in a way which aligns with my priorities:

• Respect the reader. This means a lot of things, from delivering less over the wire (respect their data plan) to leaning into HTML and CSS over JS (respect their battery).
• Respect the planet. Similar to the above, the less delivered over the wire, and the less computationally expensive to serve, parse, and render, the less carbon I'm responsible for putting into the atmosphere. This site is cleaner than 100% of other sites on the web.^[1]

In practice this means:

• No tracking.
• Semantic markup. This is easier for a human reader peaking at the markup to reason about, and also easier for screen readers.
• Less markup. No unnecessary <div>s and <span>s. This means less over the wire and less for the browser to chew on.
• Classless CSS. In line with the above, I've tried to avoid peppering my HTML with too many classes, leaning instead into tag selectors. Relationships between elements determine how they're laid out.
• Rule of least power. For me this tends to mean using HTML and CSS when possible, opting for JS only as a last resort. This also applies to hosting (serving static file rather than maintaining a dedicated application server). Most pages on this site use no JS at all.
• Progressive enhancement. For example, pages with ruby annotations use a little JS to store the ruby position preference in local storage, but browsers with JS disabled will still render everything.
• Deliver optimized images using content negotiation.

Hosting

DNS

I buy my domain names through Namecheap. Domain name providers are often a source of pain, but I've been with Namecheap since 2015 and so far I've had no issue with them. That said, I've not tried to move domain name providers, so your mileage may vary.

Version control and source code hosting

Source code is versioned using git and hosted in a public repository on GitHub.^[2]

This site is hosted on Netlify. The basic product is solid, and it's reliable enough for personal site stuff. A few times a year I'll have issues with more advanced features like Functions or Build Plugins. Netlify is a good fit for the push-to-publish way I author longer articles. When a new post is pushed or merged to the main branch it triggers a site build in Netlify. Originally this site was hosted on a server rented from DigitalOcean, with Nginx as the server software. This site is mostly static files, so maintaining a server and the Nginx configuration was overkill.

Static site generator

This site is built with a static site generator of my own design. Regular posts and Japanese notes are authored in my own markdown variant, compiled with marked. Page rendering is done with Handlebars. The generator runs on Node.js.

Dynamic IndieWeb functionality

Webmention receiver

I wrote a Netlify function to receive Webmentions. The function performs basic validation (does the source URL really mention the target? Etc.), and then creates a GitHub issue with a digest of the mention information. I hand moderate these, and mentions I'm happy with are added to page they point to.

Webmention dispatcher

Each time the site is published, a Netlify Build Plugin I wrote compares the atom feed of this site before and after. Any new, changed, or removed pages are scanned for outbound links, and mentions are dispatched as appropriate.

POSSE (publish on your own site and syndicate elsewhere)

A GitHub Actions workflow watches the repository for new notes and links and sends these to my Mastodon account.

Micropub receiver

I wrote a pair of Netlify functions to act as a Micropub endpoint and a Micropub media endpoint. These add content to the repository hosted on GitHub, triggering image resizing and builds.

Micropub clients

I use a custom Omnibear build as a Safari WebExtension using these instructions for when I'm on my laptop. I have a suite of my own MacOS/iOS shortcuts to send notes, bookmarks, photos, likes, and to log study sessions, which provides a natural integration across iOS for when I'm on my phone.

---

1. I guess this is rounded up to the nearest percent.ꜛ
2. This site also hosts its own source code as an HTTPS git server. Originally I did this as an easter egg.ꜛ