Move build to own host

[Bartvds]

I was experimenting with this on a OpenShift server so we can hang it on a couple of webhook and rebuild static html for the definition index.

[Bartvds]

@sebastian-lenz I was running the docpad build on OpenShift, the original works, but the Sass stuff in your fork is problematic. Ruby & the Sass dependency wont install properly because we don't have sudo. The alternative plugin that doesn't use Ruby won't build on Windows.

Do we particularly need Sass? Could we change it to Less? The Less compile is just plain node so works a bit smoother on all systems (our own but also potential contributors).

[sebastian-lenz]

Yes, I also had problems with the sass plugin; not related to yours, but I'm also not happy with the current setup. I'm not used to work with less, tried it years before but decided to stick with scss/sass as it felt more mature and powerfull.

After your concerns I tried to convert the sass files to less but I it did not work right out of the box. I could try to undertake a second, more detailed tryout to switch to less. Or like the javascript part, we could use vanilla css.

I know that you will not a big fan of this idea, but we could also put the theme into a separated project/repository which could use all the tools we would like to use for the assets and the final docpad setup could only consume the compiled assets.

[basarat]

After your concerns I tried to convert the sass files to less but I it did not work right out of the box. I could try to undertake a second, more detailed tryout to switch to less.

Before you do that worth mentioning that there is pure node sass compiler (https://github.com/sass/node-sass with grunt https://www.npmjs.org/package/grunt-sass)

Also if you are tired of sass (I don't like ruby either) and less (lacks fundamental imperative constructs) I'd give stylus a go : http://learnboost.github.io/stylus/ It has much more feature parity with sass.

[Bartvds]

I think being able to compile and contribute easily is important, so single repo for static site content if possible. And Less (or Stylus) would be simplest as users won't need Ruby or node-gyp.

[johnnyreilly]

I say LESS as it's simple - not as powerful but probably good enough for our use cases?

[basarat]

more people do know LESS (since it came out first) http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=less%20css%2C%20sass%20css%2C%20stylus%20css&cmpt=q

And I agree that its simple. Also easier to get a job if you know less.

[sebastian-lenz]

@basarat That's a cool graph! Got to save this one.
Okay, let me get the less docs, I want to get a job 😉

[sebastian-lenz]

Gosh, docpad-plugin-less is using an old version of less. I've updated my fork to use less files now.

[Bartvds]

Nah, but it's only a minor version and some patches behind.

Anyway, your fork builds successfully when I try it on OpenShift's scrappy linux. So we now at least have the option of generating static html for the defs.

[basarat]

I am not sure if it is relevant but thought I'd share something about sass being automatically compiled : https://github.com/blog/1867-github-pages-now-runs-jekyll-2-2-0 (http://jekyllrb.com/)

[Bartvds]

@basarat I think that's only valid for Jekyll (= Ruby) sites, while we use Docpad (= Node).

The thing about Sass was that is has dependencies (native or Ruby) so it is less portable (important when running of different kind of machines, like Travis, OpenShift and all the different user OS's).

[basarat]

that was dumb of me. sorry.