This post describes the problem. Also see the follow-up that describes a solution:
https://jsteuernagel.de/posts/using-freebsd-to-make-self-hos...
Readit Newssivers commented on A prison of my own making jsteuernagel.de/posts/a-p... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti
sivers commented on Derek Sivers's database and web apps github.com/sivers/sivers... · Posted by u/surprisetalk
Hey,
Thanks for your response. I didn’t explain myself properly.
Suppose I have a html template that contains the dynamic value {{ foo }}, that template is on my SQLDB, how do I populate {{ foo }} whilst querying the template table?
I hope that makes more sense.
Ah, sorry. I misunderstood. The parser for Mustache templates - https://mustache.github.io/ - is in the PostgreSQL functions.
See it in practice here in the unit tests:
https://github.com/sivers/sivers/blob/master/omni/test/templ...
https://github.com/sivers/sivers/blob/master/omni/test/must_...
It comes from these three functions, but really only using the top-level "o.template" function:
https://github.com/sivers/sivers/blob/master/omni/template.s...
https://github.com/sivers/sivers/blob/master/omni/must_templ...
https://github.com/sivers/sivers/blob/master/omni/must_secti...
I'm using it for https://nownownow.com/ and https://my.nownownow.com/ already. Example test:
https://github.com/sivers/sivers/blob/master/nnn/test/mynow-...
sivers commented on Derek Sivers's database and web apps github.com/sivers/sivers... · Posted by u/surprisetalk
OOC how did you land on PostgreSQL 27 years ago? That’s before I was doing this sort of thing but 7 years later MySQL definitely seemed like the “no one got fired for choosing..” option.
PS been a big fan of your writing over the years and it’s a little intimidating to just respond to one of your posts asking a silly question haha
Thanks! Robert Kaye - founder of MusicBrainz : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MusicBrainz
He is a friend and much smarter than me. He told me to switch from MySQL to PostgreSQL. I'm so glad he did.
sivers commented on Derek Sivers's database and web apps github.com/sivers/sivers... · Posted by u/surprisetalk
Despite reading the README and the article I am still unclear about how these templated values are populated. So presumably we store our HTML on the sql server along with some templating syntax then how do we plug that value so to speak?
Secondly, what do we do about things like HTML fragments à la HTMX / Datastar hypermedia approach? Do we just hit the DB for 10 lines of HTML to populate the next card in a multi step form?
I edit my HTML templates in the templates/ directory.
Then I use this little Ruby script to sync them into the database, which is where they're actually used:
https://github.com/sivers/sivers/blob/master/scripts/templat...
I haven't done HTMX fragments yet. This repository is quite new, and only like 5% done.
sivers commented on Derek Sivers's database and web apps github.com/sivers/sivers... · Posted by u/surprisetalk
Hi Derek!
It's not new, my first job circa 2007 was working on a Delphi 7 desktop application and all the "business logic" was stored procedures in an Oracle db. It was early in my career but I believe this was fairly popular in the early 00s. I was too young to have an opinion but for sure others will remember and be able to add more colour to it.
Nice seeing you around here! I'm a fan.
Thanks! I do often get "YOU IDIOT!" type comments from people that did too many Oracle stored procedures in the 90s, and were burned by it.
But PostgreSQL is not Oracle and doing things this way has been working wonderfully for me for 9 years so far.
sivers commented on Derek Sivers's database and web apps github.com/sivers/sivers... · Posted by u/surprisetalk
This is great stuff. I fell away from web dev for a very long time because I have always been a developer who focused on building from the database first and outwards while using very light amounts of business logic. This feels very old web and I encourage others to try this approach. The lightweightedness of the approach is the beauty of it and you will get much, much better at your database language of choice.
Thanks! And yeah the other inspiration is that in the last 27 years of making web apps, I've gone from PHP to Ruby to JavaScript back to Ruby, considered switching to Go or Elixir, but my PostgreSQL database was at the center of it all, throughout.
So it makes sense to notice what's constant, what's ever-changing, and organize accordingly.
sivers commented on Derek Sivers's database and web apps github.com/sivers/sivers... · Posted by u/surprisetalk
Whoa. How weird to see this on the HN front page. It's so not ready yet. I'll write up more about it some day soon.
For the big idea, see https://sive.rs/pg
I really took Rich Hickey's "Simplicity Matters" talk to heart. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI8tNMsozo0
I've been making PostgreSQL-centered web apps for 9 years that way, by having PostgreSQL just return JSON. Then the "controller" (Ruby or whatever) parses the Mustache or ERB template with the JSON and returns HTML to the browser.
What I'm doing differently now is having PostgreSQL parse Mustache templates directly!
So now the controller just has to pass in the HTTP params, give it to the PostgreSQL function, and it returns HTML ready to return in the HTTP response.
sivers commented on Ken Parker, famed luthier, has died kenparkerarchtops.com... · Posted by u/dagmx
Shame, I'm a huge fan of the Parker Fly.
They're arguably the biggest step forward in electric guitar since the 50s. Lots of new stuff there for the time, some of which became standard years after: stainless steel frets, piezo+magnetic pickups, carbon fiber reinforcement, adjustable vibrato, possibly the most seamless/flattest neck joint ever... not to mention the whole design is amazing.
This video from this guy dropped just two days ago, and explains a lot about the features and constructions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S6Cni3nkws
It's a shame they stopped manufacturing after the company was sold. I had one and regret selling, as prices haven't really come down!
Rest in peace and thanks for everything, Mr Parker!
I had my Parker Fly with me at a gig in NYC, when back stage I met Les Paul. He had never seen one, and he admired its radical choices.
So we found a nice big permanent sharpie, and Les Paul signed my Parker Fly.
It's also a wonderful metaphor for how the opposite can also be true.
Japanese addresses that name the blocks, not the streets: https://sive.rs/jadr
West African music that uses the "1" as the end of the phrase instead of the start: https://sive.rs/fela
“Whatever you can rightly say about India, the opposite is also true”, Joan Robinson
https://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_weird_or_just_differe...
Wonderfully under-rated. Robust as anything and SO FAST. It was my sole desktop OS for years, and while I’m dabbling with Debian right now, I miss Void the most. So lean and snappy.
Coming from OpenBSD and FreeBSD, Void Linux feels almost the same. Same rc init scripts and such.