Just like the last post, here is the TL;DR#

  1. Using git to store your entire Hugo file structure is probably a bad idea.
  2. Using git as cloud storage for markup files is probably also a bad idea, so I’m going to stop doing that too.
  3. Dude, you gotta run the hugo command all by itself before you copy files up to the webserver.

When we last saw our heroes…#

I was complaining about the theme files randomly disappearing. I think it comes down to git doing what it’s told to do, and me simply not understanding what I am telling it to do. That’s really the only thing that I know about computers: they do what they are told to do, not what they’re supposed to do, not what you want them to do. If a computer isn’t doing what you want, you should probably take a close look at what you are telling it to do.

Git is what plants crave#

I think git is just one too many things to learn the workings of at this juncture. I had grand ideas of using cron to clone the main branch and using words like “toolchain” but alas, it was not meant to be.

I have worked with source code management systems before when I have worked for product development orgs. I have even used source management as a kind of content management system. Git is way more than source code management. Using something as complicated as git for what amounts to document management for a team of one person is overkill. Yeah, the idea of pushing files up to github from my laptop and having some automation on the webserver pull them down seemed cool, I think I am overcomplicating my workflow.

My old wordpress blog reveals a hidden truth#

While trying to salvage some posts from another blog, I realized that I have to go back and change things all the time. Each post has probably a dozen edits. Again, this seemed like something git could help with, being able to see into past versions of my writing.

Looking at my commits in github was kind of comical. The list is something like this:

  • First commit
  • Gentrified Web Post
  • Fixed Archie template
  • Fixed Archie template again
  • IDK, it seems to be working now?
  • Removed Archie template, added Terminal template
  • changed to green text
  • reapplied template
  • changed to green text, AGAIN
  • Hugo templates post

In the past, I would revise posts because they contained typos or copy/paste errors. I’m just going to simplify the process for now and stop using git.