This site runs on Pyblosxom, a weird but interesting weblog system written in Python. Pyblosxom has the dual benefits of being very lightweight and extremely customizable. Instead of using a SQL database, it stores entries and comments in a filesystem tree, which is very convenient for people who prefer a command line to a Web interface (me). When I selected it in early 2008, it was still being actively developed. It also gave me a good excuse to learn Python, which I have done with modest success.

Performance and reliability problems with my current server have led me to want to move this site to a faster virtual server “in the cloud.” Naturally, I would install the latest version of Pyblosxom on said machine, right? Well… For a few months I’ve been testing pyblosxom 1.5rc2, the fruit of two years of sporadic development by the 3 other people who actually use this software. Because some back-end redesign necessitated many changes to my Scottosphere modifications, it took a while to get it configured again. And indeed, my non-public staging server is now about 100 times faster than the current site. But, to my great frustration, I still can’t get comments to work properly with Ajax. It has become a huge waste of time to debug, and I’m ready to throw in the towel. I really don’t want to start over, but I wonder: should I just give up and switch to Wordpress?