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2021-09-30

Inviting Bad Practice Solutions

Once again I'm considering using the wrong tool for a task. I guess I like to stretch the limits of stuff.

I'd like to make a CGI script-based twtxt interface. The use case I'm imagining (which may or may not be a complete strawman, but it's interesting) goes something like this:

• The user has no admin rights on the server.
• The user has a web or gemini directory to publish content.
• CGI scripts can be executed.
• We don't know which gemini or web server is used, meaning things like htaccess files may not work for example.

This means that the tool I'd like to make must:

• More or less just be git cloned into a publicly readable directory.
• Not rely on any cronjob or background process for fetching twtxt files.
• Not ever take so long to execute that the server kills it.

Now, something like this should of course be a web service and run on a server where the admin sets it up. But there are already solutions out there for that. This is a more interesting problem to solve.

Any tips?

-- CC0 Björn Wärmedal