I'm working on new blog code.

Old Blog Code

The most recent non-LJ incarnation of my blog was some CGI written in Python that used mbox as its backing store. Jerod is still using it, whereas I stopped dual-posting with ljupdate's archive-to-mbox feature and switched entirely over to the dark side, er, LJ.

Some things I like about the old code:

• Using mbox as the data format was nice, and allowed for posting to your blog via email quite trivially.
• Using Python means the code is actually comprehensible, unlike the Perl blog code I was using before. *shudder* Just the thought of the old code gives me the jibblies. Here they come again, the jibbly jibblies.

And here are some things I don't like about it:

• It was CGI that never generated static HTML, so it had to do way more work per page hit than it really should.
• Using Python means the code isn't in Common Lisp. Blah.
• The comment system sucked. Note that Jerod uses some other comment system.

Current plan

My current plan is to gank Nathan's blog code. It's in CL, dumps static pages, and is otherwise quite cool. But it relies on a sketchy external comment system and its backing store is a bunch of text files. Hmm.

So the plan is to combine Nathan's code with some new stuff I'm hacking up to handle the more dynamic aspects of the blog: comments, searching, et cetera.

This is partially motivated by the desire to have a cool blog system, and partially an excuse to play around with Araneida and SBCL some more.

So now we get to the purpose of this post: what sorts of features do you like in blog systems? What could you do without? What do you hate? I'd like to build something that's actually nice.

Here's a feature-by-feature comparison of LiveJournal, MovableType, and Radio Userland. You could use this feature list as a starting point, but don't let it constrain you. Tell it like it is. What are your thoughts on existing blog systems?