On Solutions

A few days ago I faced quite a quandry: which of the myriad open-source solutions to pluck off the shelf for this new blog I had planned. I've been a proponent of the Drupal content management system for quite a while now and I have used it to build some amazingly complex sites, and some rather simple sites, as well. This blog (perhaps obviously?) is run on WordPress. There wasn't a particular reason why I decided to switch it up this time; it was mostly a curiosity of how WordPress works and what it's like. So far, maybe 24 hours into using it, I'd have to say that I'm impressed.

Now, I'm not suggesting this is a massive paradigm shift in my opinions of web development and content management systems; WordPress certainly isn't something I'm going to suggest for the next big corporate website I build; but for a simple site that's extremely easy to maintain, absolutely. See, with this site, I didn't want to labor over setting it up, getting a bunch of fancy features to work just right, hassle with modules and permissions and a million other options...I just wanted it to work.

I'm a busy guy, and I don't want to labor over something that should be a release for me. I won't bore anyone with the gritty details of installing WordPress and getting it up and running and themed, with this slightly customized version of the beautiful Bitter Sweet design from oswd.org; or even bother to compare it to my recent install and set-up of a Drupal 4.7 site to communicate information about my upcoming wedding.

Moreover, I've been busy lately building two very custom CMS systems, so I've grown to appreciate "the little things" like a WYSIWYG editor that is pre-installed, gorgeous, and quick loading...like the one that came built into this install of WordPress. Drupal still requires me to download and install one on my own, and then fight with competing javascript libraries to get it to work.