Tightening up the ship
After a year of publishing The Fulcrum, I (as publisher) now know the topics, tools, and techniques I want to focus The Programmer's Fulcrum coverage on.
And maybe it will have the side benefit of shorter TPF posts. We'll see if I can tighten up my discipline as well. ;)
That narrowed focus is on tools and techniques that best meet the requirements of the Techno Anarchist Manifesto philosophy in regards to development for web and open social.
Techno Anarchism is the philosophy, strategies, and most importantly actions needed to defeat Techno Feudalism.
The tighter focus will also include what's anti- surveillance-capitalism, big tech, AI, techno feudalism, and techno fascism. Two-sides(ism) for some things is horseshit.
And our weekly TPFs will continue to cover programming standards. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. We have the tools we need now to protect ourselves from these techbro oligarch cunts.
Here at The Fulcrum we want our readers to build their own site(s) in order to participate in the Open Media Network. We want them to share/promote their voices via Real Simple Syndication (RSS), Open Social, and even a newsletter or podcast. That's why we exist and put in hours of weekly effort and service.
The world needs your knowledge, experiences, and advice.
Readers will benefit from this focus on helping them fight the enshittification of our modern society and destruction of the the planet we share.
We seek to enable the building of new alternatives with existing tools rather than more of the same techshit that got us where we are today. It's past time to stop chasing the new and shiny and get to work with what works now.
The Programmer's Fulcrum posts will have more emphasis on DIY punkish tech and less enterprise-oriented tooling. So opensource (but not necessarily free) tech will be featured. Less is more and let's K.I.S.S.!
Also we won't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We have enough foes to fight without squabbling with our allies. Let's give the benefit of the doubt to our fellow travelers who share our goals if not beliefs and tactics. We want more hunting dogs and less dogma.
Ok, let move on. So here's what we will focus on going forward. I'll go through the topics in the order they are covered in The Programmer's Fulcrum posts.
Content Management Systems / Site Builders
Our first requirement is that site tech be:
- Flat file for tech savvy users or
- Super simple to use
Our second requirement for coverage is that the tech is:
- Able to use Markdown or plain text for content
- Able to edit HTML and CSS
- Preferably be Self-hostable
- Ideally installable without the command line, multiple dependencies, and complex server setup
The flat file advantage
Flat file CMSs don't require databases, are faster, have few if any dependencies, and are more secure. They are the best option for small to medium scale sites.
Grav (Symfony Station), Kirby (Manade), Publii (Les Chroniques de Walker), Typemill (Publications), PureBlog, Flatpress, Yellow, Bludit, and Jeckyll are examples.
If you want to see them in action, the linked ones are those I have current or shuttered (though maintained) sites on.
Simpler is better
For personal and basic sites, KISS is paramount.
Bear, LMNO, Leaflet, pckt, WriteFreely, Silex, and Skypress are examples.
Again, the linked ones above are those we have sites on. In this case to cross-distribute The Programmer's Fulcrum posts to.
Going away
Even though we have used (and loved) them in the past, the following are "over" on The Fulcrum. Platforms that are too big, too complicated, too AI brainwashed, or too compromised by techbroist founders are being deep-sixed.
These too-muchees include WordPress, Ghost, Drupal, Build Awesome, etc. Nothing personal but there are many outlets covering these sub-optimal options.
Having open social integration is no longer a preference for our coverage either. These large platforms (other than WordPress) do a poor job of it anyway. We now recommend using separate open social tools and manually integrating/linking out to them. Although native integration is a nice to have.
Tools
Our coverage of techno-anarchist and OMN tools stays the same with the focus remaining on opensource, KISS, and DIY options.
Programming
Our focus will remain on standard-based web development. We're gonna bear down on Markdown, Git, HTML/X, CSS, and minimalist vanilla JavaScript. Some minor coverage of tools like IDEs, OpenProject, XWiki, Forgejo, and Codeberg will continue.
But the focus will now be exclusively on tech for individuals and very small teams. So, no coverage for enterprise-level nonsense, even if it's opensource. And fuck AI and any projects that use or accept contributions from it.
Open Social
This will be short.
For the Fediverse and Atmosphere spheres we're going to focus on the development efforts of the ActivityPub and ATProto communities.
Going away
We're dropping direct coverage of Fediverse and Atmosphere apps unless it's development related. This is especially true for Mastodon and Bluesky.
On a unsolicited advice note, please use options other than these flagships if you want to be able to use the Fediverse and Atmosphere ten years from now.
Other
This will be shorter.
Our coverage of tools like XMPP, P2P, RSS, Webmentions, Webrings, Democracy tech, etc. will stay the same.
That's it friends
We're going to make this effort to be more focused on actionability for democracy and environment loving developers. There are now more outlets for coverage of the topics we're dropping than there were a year ago.
This should make our efforts to enable non-developers to resist surveillance-capitalism, techno-feudalism, and techno-fascism more effective as well.
Thanks for reading and go help destroy autocracy.
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