What is the quickest way to a very simple blog?

Question

I am about to start a new project and would like to document its development in a very simple blog.

My requirements are:

• self-hosted on my Gentoo-based LAMP stack (that seems to rule out blogger)
• Integration in a django based website (as in www.myproject.com/about, www.myproject.com/blog etc rather than www.myproject.com and a totally different site at blog.myproject.com)
• very little or no learning curve that's specific to the blog engine (don't want to learn an API just to blog, but having to get deeper into Django to be able to roll my own would be OK) According to the answers so far, there is a chance that this excludes Wordpress

Should I

a) install blog engine X (please specify X)

b) use django to hand-roll a way to post new entries and a page on my website to display the posts in descending chronological order

Answer 1

Install Wordpress. It is the most common engine for a reason. It's PHP but will play just fine in your environment.

Answer 2

If you're the perfectionist kind, roll your own.

• It isn't that hard
• You learn something useful
• You'll get exactly what you want and need

Be warned that you may run into a quagmire fighting comment spam, fixing security holes, etc. But it'll probably be a fun project.

If you are the practical type and ready to face some integration pain, use an existing engine like WadcomBlog (Python) or PyBlosxom, or something completely different like MovableType or WordPress.

Here's a simple Django blog example to get you started.

Some pros and cons of rolling your blog engine this article by Phil Haack.

Jeff Croft apparently rolled his own as well.