Initial migration complete

The site has been been updated to a new look. It has more content and a more professional pipeline.

I have to admit that I was a little worried when starting the migration process, even though I’ve been working with (or near) the new toolset for some time.

Part of my nervousness stems from earlier experiences, which have included some rather…dramatic results.

No matter how well you plan, something always seems to go sideways. And, truth be told, there were a couple of glitches along the way. (Fortunately, I noticed and resolved things quickly.)

The new site is built using Hugo in conjunction with the Docsy theme. It’s deployed using Github pages, which should be fine for the amount of traffic I get. (I do have a scaling plan in case things blow up, but I highly doubt that’s going to happen.)

Content is maintained in a private repo and updates are synchronized to a public repo. (I plan to write a couple of articles walking through the process.)

This approach and architecture is meant to show what you can accomplish with minimal investment. Except for domain registration, the site currently relies on free services.

A number of companies take similar approaches for their docs. Microsoft, for example, maintains private and public repos for Microsoft Learn, their doc site. They get the benefit of public contributions while securing product release plans until they’re ready to be unveiled.

So how long did this makeover take? Roughly ten days from start to finish:

• A prototype was “publishable” in three days.

  Granted, I wouldn’t have wanted to publish that version, but I could have if pressed.

• The following week was spent testing, tweaking, and refining.

  This included reworking previous articles, adding support material, and writing new articles.

• The actual site migration took about 30 minutes overall.

  Timing started with adding a notice to the previous version of the site, just in case things went terribly wrong.

  I considered migration complete when the public URLs were updated.

Migration was handled carefully. Each step was tested and verified.

This helped identify a few issues and I’ve filed tickets accordingly. (Yes, I have a private Jira project to track work for the site.)

I think the new site works at least as well as the earlier one. That may seem like a modest win (table stakes, some would say). And, yet…how many times have we seen larger projects stumble because of less attention to detail?

So here we are. Is the site everything I imagined? Not entirely. But, I think it is an improvement and it sets a solid foundation for additional work.

With luck, the next major update will happen within days. And, with more luck (and diligence), that will only be the beginning.

Qapla'!

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