1.1 Categorization ¶

The first script, receives the post title, and check my INBOX to see if there is any comment there. Look how simple it is:

$imap->select('INBOX');

foreach my $post (@ARGV) {
  my $folder = $post;
  $folder =~ s/ /-/g;
  $folder =~ s/[^a-zA-Z0-9-]//g;
  $folder = "INBOX.blogpost." . $folder;

  my $messages = $imap->search({SUBJECT => 'blogpost: ' . $post}, 'DATE');

  $imap->create_folder($folder);
  $imap->copy(\@$messages, $folder);

  $imap->delete_message(\@$messages, '\\Deleted');
  $imap->expunge();
}

It just copy comments to a specific holder.

1.2 Displaying ¶

There are another script, that fetch email from the create folder, and display renders them in HTML.

And cron job runs every a couple of minutes to repeat this process and build this static HTML.

1.3 Why I love this so much? ¶

I’m really happy with the results and there are a couple of reasons why:

‘Spam filter’

My email has a spam filter so I don’t need to worry about it.

‘No login required’

You don’t need to create an account anywhere to comment. You just need an email.

‘Notifications’

I don’t need to have a system to notify you if someone replied your comment, people will send a reply email, so, you will know.

‘Moderation’

I can moderate the comments by just deleting an email.

‘Cheap’

It was both cheap to implement and to maintain, once I already pay for may email server (which could even be free).