Building Bridges from Web 2.0

General
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Hi All,

I wanted to say that I’m extremely impressed with the latest iteration of https://internetcomputer.org/.

It’s fast loading and the UI design is lovely. It says to me that we are approaching the moment when it will be possible and desirable to start moving client websites away from the traditional cloud and on to the IC.

I think it would be great to learn more about how the site was put together, and how the content is managed etc.

I run a small web design and development business, and I am planning to go ‘all in’ on the IC starting from early next year. I signed up for the next Motoko boot camp in preparation. From my current perspective there are a few important pieces of the puzzle missing (or at least I’m not sure of how to think about them in this new paradigm).

In no particular order these are:

  1. A general purpose IC native content management system with a GraphQL API.

  2. A way to provide Lambda like serverless functions from canisters on the IC.

  3. An IC native site generator with configurable templating.

I notice that some projects (Azle, Sudograph) from @lastmjs are relevant to this, and I would like to know more about how to use them to satisfy the three points above.

I think it is important to build a bridge to help existing web 2.0 developers understand how and why to start moving clients and projects over to the IC. The potential for growth in this area is huge.

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I’m working on a new (secret) side project that exactly does that. Please ping me begin of next year when you go “all in”.

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Sounds exciting. I will ping you in January.

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I think this particular subject area is large enough to sustain a community dedicated to the discussion of building and hosting websites on the IC.

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It’s (almost) all here: GitHub - dfinity/portal: Internet Computer Developer Portal

This seems relevant: Are you interested in running dynamic wasm scripts (lambdas) on-chain?

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Wow. It’s like somebody switched the lights on :smile:

It all makes sense now. I like the way it uses Netlify for previews.

Does this mean it’s possible to swap out Docusaurus and use something else to build the html before it gets deployed to the IC?

Is the deployment done with Github Actions?

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…and yes, relevant.

There is so much potential here it’s making my head spin. A new dawn for web publishing no less.

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I’ve had a good look at the code and can see it does use GitHub actions. Lots to take in here, thanks.

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Sudograph could be used for create a CMS on the IC, or just async_graphql alone which is the GraphQL library Sudograph uses under-the-hood.

Someone needs to build the CMS though.

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I think a CMS is key.

It would be fantastic to have an open source system that leverages Internet Identity.

It would be great if the CMS allowed the content model to be defined in code like Payload or Sanity and then provided an IC native admin GUI.

I read about your plan to allow open source software to levy cycles from canisters that use it.

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What do you think about it?

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I think it solves the interminable problem of funding open source at a stroke.

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Yes, that should not be a problem at all.

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