

MiniMagAsm – a minimalistic but powerful CMS  in assembly language - networked
http://asm32.hopto.org/index.cgi?page=content/0_MiniMagAsm/index.txt

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krzrak
on a side note: they use Fossil SCM [1], which looks quite interesting - it
offers not only distributed code versioning, but also distributed tickets and
wiki. Comparison with git: [http://www.fossil-
scm.org/index.html/doc/tip/www/fossil-v-gi...](http://www.fossil-
scm.org/index.html/doc/tip/www/fossil-v-git.wiki)

[1] [http://fossil-scm.org/](http://fossil-scm.org/)

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SomeCallMeTim
I've heard about it, and it does have an interesting feature set, but I've
also heard negatives.

The comparison with git is very shallow, seemingly based on misunderstandings
of how git works.

On branches they describe the Linus/Linux workflow, ignoring the fact that a
more traditional workflow can also be supported by git. In fact "git flow" is
a recommended workflow, and it's pretty much exactly what Fossil does (only
with more flexible merging options).

Sharding vs. Replication turns out to be a matter of defaults; otherwise
there's no material difference.

The web interface is cool, but I use GUI tools locally that are nicer and
faster than any web interface could possibly be. Speaking of, there are a
plethora of GUI tools available, free and for pay, for GIT.

Rebase is one of my favorite Git features; they claim it's a feature that it
doesn't exist in Fossil.

Complexity is a good point, and git has famously bad command-line UI. I'm sure
Fossil does a better job there; Mercurial and Bazaar certainly do. But git has
the features I need, which isn't true of Mercurial or Bazaar, and git has a
user base of a sufficient size (compared to Fossil) that I don't worry that
I'll hit some corner case bug and lose data.

Zed Shaw used to be a major fan of Fossil, for instance, but then he _lost_ a
repo irretrievably and swore off using it. His old site with essays seems to
be down, or I'd link his posting about it. Having everything in an SQLite
database means that SQLite _usually_ will be safe, but if something _does_ go
wrong, well, you're screwed.

~~~
mtdewcmu
>>The comparison with git is very shallow, seemingly based on
misunderstandings of how git works.

It does sound like they misunderstand (or misrepresent) the way git works. git
is very flexible and its capabilities and limitations follow from its
distributed nature. If Fossil tries to be git with a smoother interface and
more streamlined workflow, it's not surprising that its repos can go bad and
lose your data.

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fencepost
Interesting.

On the plus side, it's a tiny fast CMS that can likely be used on minimal-ish
hardware.

On the down side, A) it's x86 assembler while most _really_ minimal hardware
these days is ARM-based, and B) it generates all of its HTML on the fly so
there's a chance that decently-done caching with generation of static content
will beat it, particularly in situations where MiniMagAsm is working through
an entire directory structure to generate navigation.

I think it's an interesting concept that might actually find some use in the
real world if it was ARM assembler, but right now it's an ultralightweight
solution that will run primarily on hardware that is unlikely to really need
that light weight.

It might be interesting to compare its performance to Blosxsom or its other-
language derivatives, particularly with those in static generation mode
instead of CGI mode.

~~~
pekk
You are in favor of ARM for whatever reason but that doesn't mean that ARM is
the definition of "really minimal".

~~~
fencepost
It's not so much that I favor ARM, just that there seems to be a huge variety
of low-power (CPU and energy) systems out there based on the various levels of
ARM architecture. Routers, development boards, smartphones, etc. all seem to
run on ARM-licensed designs.

If there's a similar quantity of x86-based low-power systems I'm not aware of
it even in passing. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but it probably does
mean that x86-based systems of the sort aren't widely internet-connected
devices which means that an assembler-based CGI CMS is probably not really
relevant for them.

Edit: and I should add that by "really minimal" I'm not talking the true low-
end of embedded microcontrollers at the Arduino level or below, I'm just
talking about network-connectable devices with power consumption measured in
single-digit watts.

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johnfound
Hi. I am the author of MiniMagAsm. Actually MiniMagAsm is just an proof-of-
concept, that can be used for small sites.

I know that the performance can be improved by using some optimization tricks,
but I simply don't need (for now) it to be faster. :)

Also, it is true, that x86 hardware can run much heavier web engines, but
think about that the same hardware can run more lightweight engines as
MiniMagAsm.

Anyway, the future of this project is probably towards using FastCGI or SCGI
interfaces and maybe the use of some lightweight database engine - like
SQLite.

Ah, BTW, [http://asm32.hopto.org](http://asm32.hopto.org) is actually my home
desktop computer. :) Recently, the whole project has been moved to a
commercial hosting: [http://asm32.info](http://asm32.info)

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ejr
Interesting project. I'd love to look at the source and it is available at :
[http://chiselapp.com/user/johnfound/repository/MiniMagAsm/tr...](http://chiselapp.com/user/johnfound/repository/MiniMagAsm/tree?ci=tip)

    
    
      but you can visit the above address and download .zip files with the latest version
    

The zip file has eluded me. I may not be looking hard enough for it.

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networked
You need to log in as "anonymous" to see ZIP and Tarball links.

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mtdewcmu
I'd like to see a non-minimalistic CMS in assembly language. That would be
cool.

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fsiefken
haven't tried it yet but it might be the fastest cms on earth, or perhaps a
static markdown cms will be faster.

