Future of the web site

[MrSaints]

Really, just a personal note.

Consideration: Flat-file vs. database approach?

Background: The web site currently does not rely on any database. Content management requires manual modification of specific files which can be tedious, redundant, etc, in the long-term.

Possible solutions:

• Re-work the entire back-end and mimic static site generators (e.g. the use of YAML front matter and Markdown to build an array of namespaces, pages and their respective contents).
• Use and modify a static site generator (e.g. Assemble).
• Switch over to Sails.js and utilise a database.
• Express MVC.

Implications:

• Yaml front matter and markdown: Redundant and difficulty in separating metadata from content upon rendering (Express' render() accepts the view path, not a string / raw pre-rendered content).
• Assemble.io: No room - or at least, it is made more difficult - for dynamic content (e.g. forms).
• Sails.js: Going against initial principle to avoid reliance on database; reduced performance?

Updates:

• 07/01/2014: Maintaining the status quo, but with a huge clean up. Pursuing a quasi-MVC approach.
• 09/01/2014: Core router should be compartmentalized to allow non-GET requests to take advantage of metadata and template functions (pass instance to action function).
• 17/01/2014: Router re-worked. Contact us page added.
• 10/02/2014: Grunt has slowly been phased in / integrated (currently for compiling Compass / SASS files). Generated assets should not be included in the source. They should be generated and used upon deployment (pre/post-install scripts).
• 26/02/2014: Grunt default, dev, and test tasks added (nearing complete automation). Express MVC model used and adapted.
• 28/04/2014: New Express 4 released. Dependencies are out-dated.
• 05/04/2014: Updated to Express 4. Considering a refactor of the router and Grunt tasks (see Ghost).
• 04/07/2015: Migrated to Jekyll (static site). It is now hosted on gh-pages. Hopefully, this should be easier to maintain. It was also a much needed migration (even if only temporary) considering Heroku's new pricing model. Travis CI and CloudFlare (HTTPS) enabled. TODO: Contact us page.

Todo:

• Remove .bowerrc.
• Remove built components from repository.
• Upgrade Bower dependencies (Foundation in particular).
• Clean up Grunt tasks (compartmentalize) and add server watch task
• CloudFlare postinstall script?
• Transfer ownership of domain and Mailgun