Decisions

web

Client-side

No use of JavaScript

AnchorBot doesn't use JavaScript (e.g. for loading/reloading parts of the site) because it slows down the browser in general and therefore inhibits interactivity. The decision fell to the use of simple plain HTML to give the same chance to each browser the user might use, whether it uses a fast JavaScript engine or not. It also makes things plain simple (à la K.I.S.S.).

Server-side

Using Flask

The Flask Python module offers everything that is needed, looks simple and has a nice tutorial. It's a pretty door to Python's web potentials. It also offers templates via Jinja2 which has syntax similarities to Python.

Host is Public

Address http://0.0.0.0:8000 is used to be able to read news together with other users in the same network.

Warning: That way, users reading news mark these as being read already such that others cannot read the news anymore.

bot

Crawl into linked pages

1. Content delivered by RSS feeds is often not enough to get an overview of an article.
2. Web pages often distract the reader by ads and individual design.
3. Videos etc. are often not contained in pure RSS feeds.

But these are important for the quality determination of an article. So AnchorBot has to try to read web pages that are linked in RSS feeds.