Happy 2014! I know that the blog here has not been updated in awhile and I just wanted to drop a line to say that it has not been abandoned. There have been some fairly new and exciting life-changes for myself, the primary author of content on this site. I have recently started a new full-time day job and because schedules have been ambitious right from the get-go and there has been a lot to learn in a short amount of time, I have not had a chance to update the 9bit Studios blog much. I have been developing on a fairly large enterprise web platform that I am not too familiar with so I have been trying to absorb much information as possible all while doing development simultaneously. Hopefully when the dust settles a bit I’ll have the chance to get back into posting here a bit more regularly again.
When Ghost first made its appearance on the Internet via some initial videos demonstrating its features and capabilities as a new blogging platform, there was a lot of excitement around it. There was an enthusiastically supported Kickstarter campaign that raised a sizable amount of money. Below is the video showcasing Ghost…
Fast forward to 10/14/2013, Ghost released to the general public today. Will this go down as a day that everyone remembers as a monumental day in history, or are we seeing just a frenzy of brief initial energy? Only time will tell, but Ghost seems to have some unique things going for it. For one, it runs on Node.js. This is something that is unique when compared to other popular blogging platforms and content management systems. To learn more about Node.js you can take a look at the Node.js primer elsewhere on this site. While there are probably some other Node-based blogging platforms that have been written by people in the Node.js community, Ghost definitely seems to have the most visibility at present. I like Node.js and I like blogging so it seems like a coming together of some good things.
Secondly, one of the engaging features Ghost possesses is that in creating a post you can use simple markdown (which is also used on other popular sites such as GitHub and Reddit) to easily bridge the gap between entering plain text into an editor and having it be cleanly converted to HTML. And beyond that there is a slick live editing feature where you can see what your post is going to look like in real-time as you edit. You don’t even have to click any preview button to see what you are creating because it is right there in front of you.
And then lastly, Ghost proclaims to be a return to the basics of being “just a blogging platform”. This is where WordPress got its start before it matured into a full-fledged content management system over the years. It will be interesting to see if Ghost sticks to its roots or if people will try to turn it into all things for all purposes.
In 2013, a lot of people use WordPress for their blogs because it is so ubiquitous across the internet. Ghost is likely going to need to have some significant appealing features that really set it apart from something as established as WordPress before it becomes widely adopted. But there are definitely going to be some initial challenges for Ghost to overcome. One is the learning curve of using and developing on a platform such as Node.js which in 2013 is still an emerging technology. Installation and deployment to production will not immediately be available on all web hosts. Additionally, like any piece of software in its infancy, features will be somewhat limited. At its launch Ghost had no native comments system and only supports one user account per blog. So there are definitely a number of elements across the entire stack that need to bake in the oven a bit longer. But these things will come with time and with enthusiastic community involvement things may come quicker than anticipated.
Overall, Ghost looks promising and the future looks bright… so it is definitely something to keep an eye on as it grows and matures. If you want to go check it out, the Ghost homepage can be found here and the Ghost GitHub page is here.
