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What my automation is even about and why I started working on it:

During the course of making this blog, I ran across a rather simple, yet mind-scrambling issue that left me at my wits’ end for a few weeks, and that is remembering the exact time and date when I last updated/changed the content of the blog. It should go without saying that such a task is so simple that it can seem implausible for someone to forget to do but what do you know, I kept forgetting write down the times and dates! Even though GitHub does keep track of the time when a file was last edited, it’s not a very accurate way of telling when did the changes happen exactly. In these articles I’ll touch upon why automating this task is of major importance to me and also in general to most other content creators out there, but first I’ll explain why recording the last modified dates is important to begin with.

Writing down or recording or logging the last modified dates of the posts on blogs or websites in general is a very important practice for a lot of reasons. First of all, it enhances transparency and credibility, allowing whoever is viewing a post or an article to gauge their freshness and also gauge the relevance of the content, and in the digital world of today, information can become outdated rather quickly and providing the last modified date allows folks to make informed decisions about whether the content is still pertinent or not. Moreover, search engines tend to prioritize recent and updated content, so including the dates can positively impact my blog’s search engine optimization (SEO) performance. Additionally, keeping track of modifications is very useful in helping me maintain a well-maintained and organized archive once the number of posts on the blog gets larger and larger; it’ll help me with things like revisiting and updateing older posts, which ensures the accuracy and reliability of information over periods of time. Incorporating this seemingly simple and, to some people, un-needed feature fosters trust with the website visitors, aligns with good SEO practices, and facilitates efficient content keeping and management!

Now, why is automating the whole thing such a big deal, you may be asking? Essentially, automating the whole recording process of last modified dates for blog posts brings a whole lot of benefits to the table for content creators and website administrators and whatnot. One of the main primary advantages is efficiency. In this dynamic digital landscape where content is constantly updated and modified, manually managing and updating modification dates for each blog/website post can be a time-consuming and especially an error-prone task. Automation streamlines this process a lot, ensuring accuracy and saving valuable time that can be redirected towards producing high-quality and relevant content, automation also promotes consistency across a blog or website; human errors, such as simply forgetting to update a last modified date or making data entry mistakes or the like, can lead to inconsistencies in the publication timeline which can cause trouble down the road. Automated systems in general eliminate these risks by consistently and accurately recording modification dates without relying on human intervention. This not only enhances the overall reliability of the information presented but also maintains a professional and polished appearance for the blog.

Another compelling reason to is the scalability automation provides. As a website grows in terms of the number of posts and pages, manually managing modifications becomes increasingly complex, resource-intensive and eventually it’ll lead to people just forgetting to do the thing eventually. Automation allows for a scalability of operations seamlessly, ensuring that even with a large volume of content, last modified dates are consistently and promptly updated. This scalability is particularly crucial for sites with frequent updates or content refreshes, since it ensures that the entire content inventory remains well-organized and up-to-date at all times, automated last modified dates also contribute significantly to user experience. Visitors to a blog or website often rely on modification dates to assess the relevance and timeliness of content. A well-maintained and automated system instills confidence in visitors, indicating that the site is actively managed and that the information presented is current. This positive user experience can lead to increased engagement, improved user satisfaction, and potentially higher retention rates!

All in all, automating stuff in today’s world is something of the utmost importance for a plethora of reasons, as you can tell by now. It not only enhances efficiency and consistency but also facilitates scalability, improves user experience, and positively influences users’ idea of the site. By embracing automation, content creators can stay ahead in this ever-evolving digital era, ensuring their content remains reliable, relevant, and readily accessible to a growing audience.

Now, as for what I’ve done to accomplish this task, I’ve decided to create a python script that automates obtaining the last modified date of all the markdown files found in the directory of the repo and then lists them down. I’ll go into the details of this process in the following posts, including how the process itself went and what issues I came across and what obstacles faced me along the way.