Static sites and reproducible research blogging

08 August 2013

Others have mentioned before some of the advantages of static sites like jekyll, and among them is the use of versioning systems like git on github](https://github.com/). But another hidden advantage is that anybody digging through the directory structure of the site can check which posts might be coming up, and once they are posted how exactly they evolved over time.

For example, see my drafts directory as well as how this specific post evolved before it got to be published on this blog.

But then you might be like who cares? Well, if you're writing a non-scientific blog post then probably there is less reason to care about the archeology of a certain post. But imagine that the post is instead focused on exploring a given data set for the adverse effects of a certain drug. Well, all of a sudden how exactly the post got to the conclusions it got does matter. For example, did you go in a certain direction that showed no problems just to fish into a little corner that would make your blog post shine? Did multiple people actually contribute to the post? Who did what? All of this would be easy to find if the blog has an underlying versioning system.

by Ricardo Pietrobon

About Me

My name is Ricardo Pietrobon and I am interested in big data and situated cognition applied to immersive distance education.

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