Upgrading Jekyll 2.x to 4.x
(or: I already mentioned it's a very old Jekyll setup)
Turns out I did make it to item #984 on my TODOs.
Upgrading Jekyll has proven to be far easier than migrating to Hugo.
There were only 2 issues to tackle:Issue 1 - Generating Categories and Tags in Jekyll 4.x.x
The old scripts of generate_categories.rb and generate_tags.rb and their corresponding liquid filters: tag_links and category_links no longer seem to do the trick in Jekyll 4.
Is it likely possible to fix these functions and keep using the liquid filters? Probably. Is it necessary? Nope.
It's much easier to just build a template that does the same job and is certainly more future-proof.
In short, this was the old template:
old_template.htmlnew_template.html1 2 3 4 5{% raw %} <!-- This used to work for Jekyll 2 --> <div class="post-tags">Tagged with <span>{{ post.tags | tag_links }}</span></div> <div class="post-category">Posted in <span>{{ post.categories | category_links }}</span></div> {% endraw %}Full example here (including the old scripts and new template).1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13{% raw %} {% comment %}<!-- TODO put this in a separate include to save some trouble. Obviously there's some room for improvement here. -->{% endcomment %} <div class="post-tags">Tagged with <span> {% for tag in post.tags %} <a class="tag" href="{{ "/tag/" | append: tag | downcase | replace: " ", "-" | uri_escape }}">{{ tag }}</a>{% if forloop.last %}{% else %}, {% endif %} {% endfor %} </span></div> <div class="post-category">Posted in <span> {% for category in post.categories %} <a class="category" href="{{ "/category/" | append: category | downcase | replace: " ", "-" | uri_escape }}">{{ category }}</a>{% if forloop.last %}{% else %}, {% endif %} {% endfor %} </span></div> {% endraw %}Issue 2 - Unrendered liquid in Paginator
On generated pages (page/##) I was getting unrendered Jekyll liquid code for my meta_description.
Why? Not sure. A relatively simple IF change helped handle this and grab the correct parts -This ended up giving me the same meta_descriptions as I used to get on Jekyll 2.x.1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19{% comment %} TODO this should likely be resolved by proper layout usage (dedicated paginator page layout for starters) {% endcomment %} {% assign meta_desc = site.description %} {% raw %}{% unless page.url == '/' %} {% if page.meta_description %} {% capture meta_desc %}{{ page.meta_description }}{% endcapture %} {% elsif page.excerpt %} {% capture meta_desc %}{{ page.excerpt | strip_html | strip_newlines | truncate: 160 }}{% endcapture %} {% elsif page.content %} {% if page.content contains "for post in paginator.posts" %} {% capture meta_desc %}{{ paginator.posts | first | strip_html | strip_newlines | strip | split: " - " | first | truncate: 160 }}{% endcapture %} {% else %} {% capture meta_desc %}{{ page.content | strip_html | strip_newlines | strip | truncate: 160 }}{% endcapture %} {% endif %} {% endif %} {% endunless %} {% endcapture %} <meta name="description" content="{{ meta_desc }}"> {% endraw %}
The good news is that the build time has decreased by 10X!
The really good news is that it's now fully within GitHub Actions!Posted in TechnologyAdventures of a very old Jekyll Setup
A waterfall of errors
So I've been writing on an old Jekyll website of mine.
Sooner or later I promised myself to move it to Hugo, however it's #983 on the TODO list.
For now, during the build I have been bombarded with the following 5 errors on repeat:Obviously the real answer here would be to upgrade my Jekyll setup to ensure Ruby stops complaining about my ancient stack.1 2 3 4 5/var/lib/gems/2.7.0/gems/jekyll-3.1.2/lib/jekyll/convertible.rb:42: warning: Using the last argument as keyword parameters is deprecated /var/lib/gems/2.7.0/gems/jekyll-3.1.2/lib/jekyll/document.rb:265: warning: Using the last argument as keyword parameters is deprecated /var/lib/gems/2.7.0/gems/jekyll-3.1.2/lib/jekyll/tags/include.rb:169: warning: Using the last argument as keyword parameters is deprecated /var/lib/gems/2.7.0/gems/jekyll-3.1.2/lib/jekyll/url.rb:119: warning: URI.escape is obsolete /var/lib/gems/2.7.0/gems/rb-inotify-0.9.7/lib/rb-inotify/watcher.rb:66: warning: rb_safe_level will be removed in Ruby 3.0
I have promptly placed upgrading my stack as item #984 on the TODO list (as this is running in isolation, it's not a huge threat).
For the time being, I am using the following command to silence the noise:1bundle exec jekyll serve 2>&1 | egrep -v 'deprecated|obsolete|rb_safe_level'Posted in TechnologyAWS S3 Sync in GitHub Actions
Using GitHub Actions to deploy your static website to S3?
Great!Using AWS S3 Sync command?
Amazing!Did you make sure you have the `--size-only` flag on?
Without `--size-only`, your entire bucket will be uploaded each time your push to your branch. This includes contents that haven't changed at all.Why?
By default, AWS S3 Sync compares the timestamp of your source and destination files. If the timestamp doesn't match - the file will be uploaded. This is a problem, since the files are newly created on each build (they are checked out as part of the workflow). To ensure only size is compared, use the `--size-only` flag like so:p.s. You may have noticed I've also excluded the .git/ and .github/ folders.1aws s3 sync ./ s3://YOUR_BUCKET_NAME --size-only --exclude '.git/*' --exclude '.github/*'
You're welcome ;)Posted in TechnologyThe Fulfilled Promise of Serverless
I respectfully disagree with the arguments made on Last Week in AWS against Serverless.Regarding portability issues
The problem described is down to architecture. Do you need to add logic that handles the API Gateway? Yes. Does it have to be an integral part of your Lambda functions? No. In the majority of Serverless stacks that I've seen, the handling of the API Gateway event (think auth, middleware, different content types, etc.) is done in a separate package and can be relatively easily re-implemented for another Cloud provider. I do accept the premise of AWS Step Functions being the exception to this rule, but I don't believe they are absolutely necessary (nor do they feel productive to work with). Most Step Functions structure can be replaced by either a Queue or Messaging system, depending on the requirements.Regarding the perceived value fallacy
Essentially the argument is about the limited impact savings Serverless could bring to the table compared to the overall budget. One critical thing isn't taken into account - The inevitable DevOps department. I have seen plenty of early stage startup with 5-10 engineers and zero DevOps. Nearly in every one of those cases they were able to do that by going either fully managed (e.g. Vercel, Auth0) or fully Serverless. Those saved salaries count for much more than the net savings on the infrastructure budget.Regarding the difficulty of collaboration compared to WordPress
It is unclear in your argument whether those collaborators were writers or engineers, but I'm assuming writers. I do agree that it is much easier to write articles using WordPress than your home-made lean Serverless solution. This however completely misses the point. It is not WordPress the writers are missing, it is the WYSIWYG editor (In WordPress's case - Gutenberg). There are plenty of full-featured Markdown editors that can directly save to GitHub. A website generator such as Hugo could easily connect those repositories with your website and presto! Writers are happy again.Posted in TechnologyMultiple Deployments with Terraform Workspaces
In recent months, I've been working more and more with Terraform, deploying to multiple cloud providers and even combining it with Serverless projects (more on that on the next post).
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