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Learn X in Y minutes

Whirlwind tours of popular and ought-to-be-more-popular programming languages, presented as valid, commented code and explained as they go: one page per language.

The pages are Learn X in Y minutes by Adam Bard and its many contributors (adambard/learnxinyminutes-docs), licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0.

How this site was made

Nobody copied a page by hand. exp_static_html_imports read the Markdown of that GitHub repository and turned all 201 English pages into real Exponential content: searchable, editable, permission-controlled and cached, with code blocks kept as code and every old address redirecting to its page.

  • The first import: 201 pages created in 37 seconds, with one console command.
  • Running it again: every page checked in about 6 seconds; only what changed upstream is updated.
  • What it took: one settings group, one small PHP class of about 15 lines (titles from the pages' front matter), and its own siteaccess with its own content tree root.

Why it matters when your budget is zero

  • No license fees: Exponential and its extensions are free software (GNU GPL v2 or later).
  • No rewrite: a static site, a folder of Markdown or HTML, or a live website becomes a dynamic, editable website with one command.
  • No lock-in: the source stays where it is. Import again whenever it changes; edits made in the CMS are flagged and kept, and pages removed upstream are hidden, never lost.
  • No broken links: every old path redirects to its new page.
  • Minutes, not weeks: start with a part of a source (--path, --limit), look first (--dry-run), then import the rest.

The step-by-step guide, with simple examples and the easy fixes for the usual complications (titles, classes, partial imports, re-runs): Recreate the doc.ez.no archive as your own website, or import any static site in minutes, with Exponential.

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