

Getting Started With Toto, a Tiny WordPress Killer - puns
http://fadeyev.net/2010/05/10/getting-started-with-toto/

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whalesalad
Toto might be a "WordPress Killer" _for hackers_ , but that's just about it.

There are two reasons why WordPress is wildly successful...

(1) It's built in PHP so it can run on anything. Any webhost out there will
run it, and 99% of them will have a "one-click-install" button for you.

(2) It has a pretty damn good admin interface and theme/plugin community.
Anyone can install themes and plugins, either thru the interface or with some
simple FTP knowledge.

All of this aside... I can't effing stand WordPress. I've been developing for
it since it first branched off from the b2 blogging engine many moons ago. For
a developer, building a complete site in WP generally consists of hacking
plugins to work with one another, or writing your own modifications.

I built this site (<http://arbesko.com>) in WordPress because the client
wanted it. Only about 10% of it is WP. I extended the URL rewriting system and
wrote all of my own template code, most of the queries were written by hand.
An experience WP dev might frown upon this because of "future incompatibility"
but honestly, if you want to write good shit you're not gonna find it with
WP's built in tools. The only thing left that isn't my own is pretty much the
DB.

For a super simple blog, go with WP. For a "WP as a CMS site", don't fall for
that bullshit. Write it in something else, anything else. Write it from
scratch in Perl for all I care, just stay away from using WP for anything more
than a blog and/or _very_ simple site.

And again, these kinds of things (toto, jekyll, etc...) are fun for hackers,
but they will never kill WP. If you want to kill WP you're going to need to
attack it from the perspective of an "SEO Marketing social media expert from
Tampa FL who has 2 kids and runs the Tampa Tweetup every weekend", and not
that of a hacker. The most you can expect from someone is installing an FTP
client and uploading it. These people don't play with terminals or git.

~~~
jessor
I can feel your pain. I've recently begun doing projects with wordpress which
require several custom queries and own code. I'm pretty sure there's a better
platform for those "advanced cms needs", but, hell, wordpress is still just so
convenient.

Also, the "future incompatibility" is not that bad with wordpress, just look
out for "deprecated" in the source.

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armandososa
Tiny Wordpress Killer? That's the worst misleading title I've read in a while
(and you'll se a lot of that here at HN). WordPress is a blogging software
slowly becoming a full-blown CMS which is easy to host and --arguably-- easy
to use.

Toto is a nice simple script that publishes static files to heroku via git.
It's interesting, and hackish, and fun, but hardly a WP killer.

~~~
cloudhead
I don't see how your description of WordPress makes it different from Toto.

Toto is blogging software, has a full blown CMS, through git, is easy to host
(Heroku), and is easy to use.

Hence, they serve the same purpose, which is of publishing and managing
articles in the cloud.

~~~
wwortiz
How do I use it without installing a bunch of stuff on my Windows computer?

Wordpress is for the masses this is like jekyll alternative rather than
wordpress killer.

~~~
puns
Yes but how do you use WordPress without installing a bunch of stuff on your
computer? You need MySQL and you need a web server to run it, probably Apache.
These don't come standard with Windows, so it's not that much easier to get
WordPress running locally. It's true that many hosts now offer very easy
WordPress installs, but there is no reason why something like this can't be
set up for Toto. But as it is right now, Toto is a great WP replacement for
hackers.

~~~
blueben
I think you missed both points. Point 1 was that he doesn't need to install
anything on his Windows _client_ to publish to his blog. Point 2 was that Toto
is not a WP killer. By naming Toto as a replacement for hackers (solutions for
hackers are never killers of solutions for the masses), you are confirming his
point.

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trevorturk
FWIW - I just migrated my old WordPress site to Heroku, but I decided to keep
the WP database structure intact.

So, I made a little Sinatra app with an ActiveRecord adapter that can
understand the WP db schema.

It's just a hack to support my immediate needs at this point, but I think the
concept is a good one.

<http://github.com/trevorturk/trevorturk>

Holler if it looks interesting to you.

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kmano8
I've been looking for a lightweight alternative to wordpress, so I'll give
this a runaround. My only barrier to entry is having to dump all of wordpress
posts into whichever new CMS I choose.

~~~
mattmiller
It would be pretty easy to dump each post into its own txt file to work with
this. You might have a problem importing comments, I am not sure if disqus has
a way to import older comments. I would guess not.

~~~
akkartik
_"I am not sure if disqus has a way to import older comments. I would guess
not."_

This was a long-standing request
(<http://disqus.disqus.com/how_do_i_import_comments>) but it seems there is a
solution for the past year ([http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/give-your-wordpress-
comments-a-...](http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/give-your-wordpress-comments-a-
makeover-with-disqus)) Tell us if you try it out.

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misuba
If it doesn't run WP plugins and themes, or at least easily convert the
themes, it's not a WP killer.

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URSpider94
If you're interested in an ultra-lightweight blogging platform, may I suggest
that you check out Bloxsom (<http://www.bloxsom.com>, pronounced "Blossom")?
It's written in Perl, all blog entries are text files, and categorization is
done by sorting the entries into different folders.

Admittedly, it doesn't run on RoR, so you can't just pop it up on Heroku, but
Bloxsom has been around for years and years, and has a stable group of
maintainers on Sourceforge.

~~~
mdolon
I think you meant Blosxom: <http://www.blosxom.com/>

Your link goes to someone's personal homepage. :)

~~~
URSpider94
Oops, you are so right.

Thanks.

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ComputerGuru
On my blog (<http://neosmart.net/blog/>) I'm running our own
"PerformancePress."

It's a WordPress install with a custom frontend. So you get a mind-blowing
admin interface, and light-speed frontend. Updates to the frontend are a PITA
when it comes to syncing new features with the backend, but for the basics
(posts, comments, pingbacks, and.... that's it! It's a BLOG!!) it does the
job.

~~~
listic
I get this "PerformancePress" is proprietary software?

Good for you to have it.

~~~
ComputerGuru
Yeah, we wrote it in-house. I was speaking with the WordPress team about
merging the changes back or something and sponsored a GSoC project for
PerformancePress, but they ended up going somewhere else with the GSoC project
that I mentored which ultimately failed.

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benhoyt
Boy, Toto's almost exactly like something I dreamed up a couple of months ago.
Except my idea was more to show how one could use version-controlled text
files _as_ your database in many simple situations. There are so many tools
available already for doing stuff with text files. All you need is an index by
"column" facility, and you're most of the way there (for simple websites like
blogs).

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iuguy
For the meta description tag all you need to write is:

<meta name="description" content="<%= @context[:description] || 'Default
description' %>" />

Definitely a wordpress killer from an ease of use perspective, or not...

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jbellis
Similar project for Python (that I believe predates Toto, could be wrong):
<http://www.blogofile.com/>

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kylemathews
Yeah! Another [x] killer!

