Tue, 19 Dec 2023
What is Shinobi anyway?

Shinobi (https://git.btxx.org/shinobi) takes minimal blogging to a whole other level.

It is a text-based, RSS-focused blogging "system," says creator Bradley Taunt.

The home page is an XML feed, and the individual pages are text files that render that way. The system is designed to create blogs that can be read in an RSS reader (Like Liferea in Linux, via the feed functionality of Thunderbird ... and I'm kinda tapped out for RSS reader software that actually works, though I used to run an open-source RSS reader in Windows that I quite liked).

But you CAN look at the web site in a normal web browser. Chances are you're seeing it that way right now.

The Shinobi script that generates the home page is very short -- just 47 lines -- and there is a CSS file that works with an XML feed to make it look better.

I'm just having a play with Shinobi at this point. It looks like a way to have a super-minimal, future-proof web site that can potentially live forever in as minimal a way as possible.

Shinobi's main Git repo:

https://git.btxx.org/shinobi

Bradley Taunt's Shinobi site and blog, which explains how to use Shinobi:

https://shinobi.btxx.org (explanation of Shinobi with blog entries)

https://shinobi.btxx.org/feed.xml (just the entries)