If I was to change blog software (because this software sucks -- I can say that, because I wrote it)... then what software should I change to? I was getting stressed about the change, but then I realized I deliberately put .html at the end of all my URLs just so I could dump everything to a static version, so I shouldn't be too worried. (And then I still need to fix up the redirects that I let break over the years and clean out spam and catch anything I've accidentally deleted and... oh bother)

Anyway, I'd like:

• Threaded comments. I think threaded comments have substantially improved the quality of discussion.
• Some spam protection. (I've decided I like OpenID in particular, but CAPTCHAs are more friendly in a way)
• Some pleasant input format. Restructured Text or pluggable preferred. I write about code, and not all formats work well for that (including many WYSIWYG editors). Poor Python Blogger users, with their crushed whitespace :-/
• Static publishing or pretty URLs that can translate to static publishing is cool. Since that's the one thing that I realize will save my butt with this software, it would be nice to keep that going.

I don't actually care that much about the language of implementation. I have too damn many projects, which is why this software has been so neglected, and I don't want another project. Suggestions? Just jump on the WordPress bandwagon?

Whatever it is, I know I won't keep any of those stupid narrow column templates (no offense to all you people who have kept the stupid narrow column template ;). It looked kind of sophisticated a year or two ago; now it is just an annoying waste of space. And the way comments get strewn way down the page adds to the ghettoization of comments in many blogs. And none of that stupid whitespace in the line spacing either. The rise of RSS and aggregators has shown us that uniform presentation is a more pleasant reading experience, so I plan to let browser defaults control much of the look of my site.

If you are curious about why this software sucks... I blame it on my ill-advised attempt to avoid a database. Flat files suck. BDB sucks more. I used both here. But the .html extensions are awesome!