For security reasons, we have no choice. It's specifically designed not to allow execution of arbitrary Ruby code. GitHub wouldn't run Pages if Jekyll didn't have this guarantee.
If I update just one post, can't we just recompile that? If a layout is changed, then all non-static files would be regenerated. There's a way to be more specific.
"Build time" means "generation time", or "compile time". It's the amount of time it takes Jekyll to build the site from the source to the static HTML, etc. Right now, it's really slow. If you have over 100 posts, it practically warrants a coffee break. We have some developed some ideas about fixing this issue.
I worked at Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, in their Communications Dept (Administrative) to completely rewrite http://cals.cornell.edu with Jekyll.
Our workflow included Github, the Github desktop clients, SublimeText 2, and a script we wrote which would run `jekyll --auto --server 3000` so that the person making the changes could ensure that it came out the right way before committing to the repo. Pretty easy stuff.
It's in his best interest to stay in the project. He'll have others working on it, and he'll want to ensure that he has some say in the direction of the project.
Good point! This letter was written after I've done much of that. Unfortunately, nothing has been done yet. But that's definitely the attitude that one should take (unfortunately, it's just deteriorated over time).
The reason I sent this email (and others) to Tom is because it seems like he's lost interest in the project - which is totally fine! As it's an insanely popular project, however, (one which the public has not forgotten about, certainly), I have an intense desire to push it forward and see it become all that it can be!
I definitely disagree, especially given that their example for its efficiency is "table-based layouts". That's a huge no-no. Tables are for tabular data only.