How this blog works, and why it lives next to our code

Every post on this blog is a plain text file that lives next to the code of Web2Labs, and it goes live the same way the product does: with a release.

Why we did not rent a blog platform

The quick way to start a blog is to sign up for one. We decided against it, for three reasons.

• It keeps us honest. A post goes through the same release process as the code it describes, so it cannot quietly drift away from what the product actually does.
• It keeps the pages part of the site. A post is not an embed from another service. The full text is in the page the moment it arrives, for readers and for search engines alike.
• It keeps the explanation next to the change. When we change a feature, the post that explains it can change in the same step.

It looks like News on purpose

The Blog shares its reading design with News: the same cards, the same search in the top bar, the same article layout with its table of contents and share buttons. We did not want two different reading experiences on one site.

They are still separate products. News reports on the platforms you create on. The Blog reports on Web2Labs. They have separate pages, separate feeds and separate search, so neither one buries the other.

What you get as a reader

• Every post is readable without an account.
• An RSS feed at web2labs.com/blog/rss.xml brings new posts to your feed reader.
• A "Report an error" link at the top of every post opens an email to us, so a correction never depends on a comment section.
• Posts drafted with automated writing help carry the same disclosure label as News, so you always know how a text was made.

The tradeoff

A post only goes live with a release, so we cannot publish something in thirty seconds from a phone. For writing that explains why we built something, that is the right speed.