Dapper

Introduction

Dapper is one of the few active static site generators for the Perl community, a command-line utility that takes content stored in Markdown files, arranges it via a preset template, and generates a static HTML page which webmasters can serve to their users.

Markdown syntax is used to format the way the text appears on the site, while YAML is used to store various site details and meta data.

Dapper doesn't work in real-time, so every time a webmaster makes a change to the content, he'll need to re-build and update his site via simple CLI commands.

Using this approach, Dapper-generated sites are quite fast being easier to load since pages are a lot smaller and don't require any server-side logic or operations.

Sites are also portable, being easier to move from server to server, since there are no complex database migrations involved, operations which usually take up lots of time and generate most of the errors.

And to make things even better, Dappe also comes with a built-in Web server, so you won't have to mess around with various server technologies. Just install Dapper, run a few CLI commands and you're ready to go.

Distributed as a Perl module, Dapper comes with a command-line application called dapper which you can use to create static websites.

$ cpanm App::Dapper
$ dapper init
$ dapper serve # Serve site at http://localhost:8000

Goals

Dapper has three goals:

1. Simple. Learning Dapper is easy – it gets out of the way so you can write content, develop layouts, and deploy to production the way you want.
2. Flexible. Content is written in Markdown, and templates are written using the TT3 mini-language from Template::Alloy for maximum flexibility.
3. Pragmatic. The easy things are easy and the hard things are possible. Dapper was created to solve problems in a straight-forward and intuitive way.

Rationale

Why static? Decent question. Here are some reasons:

1. Fast. Static pages are fast to load and easy to cache. Content management systems, on the other hand, may contact the database at least one time per page request, process the results, merge with a templating system, and serve the result to the user’s web browser.
2. Cheap. Having a static website means that options for hosting those static files also just got a lot more simple. No database is needed and no real processing power for scripting is needed. For example, with a static website, it becomes possible to host the site on Github Pages, BitBalloon, or Amazon S3 for free or for very modest fees.
3. Secure. It’s much more secure to host a static website than a dynamic one. Content management systems that use scripting languages such as Perl, Python, or Ruby, all are more susceptible to being hacked than a static website is. Simply stated, why use a dynamic content- management system if a static setup will do?
4. Portable. With a static website, it’s way easier to move the site to a new host in the future. All web hosts now and in the future support serving up a static website – think of it as the lowest common denominator – and so there’s no need to pick a premium host with premium services.

Background

Dapper was first written in 2002 to facilitate the creation of a series of static websites that each had their own look and feel, but shared content. Since then, Dapper has been used to create websites for speakers, artists, authors, illusionists, web designers, piano tuners, photographers, entertainment agencies, and API documentation for industrial sensing equipment. In addition, it is the tool that powers Vanilla Draft.

In 2014, Dapper was submitted as a Perl module (App::Dapper) to CPAN under the MIT license for anyone to use for any purpose.

Features

• Written in perl, available as a command line utility after installing.
• Content is written in Markdown.
• Layouts are developed using TT3 from the Template::Alloy templating engine.
• Configuration files and attributes are encoded with YAML.
• URL mappings, plugins, filters, built-in development webserver, etc.

Find more infomration at Vanilla Draft or on Github.

Etc

Society

Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers :   Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism  : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

Quotes

War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotes :  Somerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose Bierce :  Bernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

Bulletin:

Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

History:

Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOS :  Programming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC development :  Scripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

Classic books:

The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-Month :  How to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

Most popular humor pages:

Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D

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Last modified: March, 12, 2019