Note (10/25/2019): This is the first post written at our own site, after we migrated the posts from the WordPress site. Notice, too, we went two years (from 22 Apr 2017 to 01 Jun 2019) without WP. We’ll have to look at that and report on how we coped ;>). Our first post here was 19 Jun 2019. We got on GitHub on 9 Aug 2019 (and felt right at home).
Back during the time that we got off of Microsoft’s older on-line community, we went Linux/HTML/CSS/JS as that was familiar. And, it allowed a focus on content rather than merely configuration.
As in, these two are not of the same hat. The choices made then are documented in this blog starting in 2014 with recaps of earlier work. And, plenty of content has been done the past few years. But, during that time, we occasionally looked at the technical alternatives (Joomla, et al, including WP). There are many approaches, none took us away from our detailed work.
Until we started to work at wordpress[dot]com on this blog which we are not moving to our own site. This means that we’l have to learn about WP. Today, I got into customizing the theme that we’re using at the moment. And, see the alternative approaches. One can rewrite the files which is not suggested since it could mess up the system. There are function overrides for the PHP which look interesting.
One thing is that plug-ins are now the norm. As I installed, some default plug-ins were activated. I’ve removed those so that we can start over. As with anything of this nature, things change and have to be updated. Some of this is required for secure/safe computing. Others are just from the normal process of improving as things go along (or not).
In any case, it’s an interesting setup. People use WP to drive business processes all of the time. Some of the themes bring in a lot of functionality. But, as our Portal to truth shows, we are of the minimal mindset. Notice that, there, we are bringing in more JS.
The minimal is more for footprint and the removal of a whole lot of ‘flash’ with the intent to have as much power as necessary. It is not, so much, the costs aspects, though that is always a concern in the non-profit mode. Over the years, we have used many types of media. Perhaps, it’s time to recap that bit of work and its consequences. Then, we could think of what it is that we are after.
We have Gardner’s Beacon as a newsletter. The Gardner Annals has done well as a means to pull research topics and results together. As well, we have established a print mechanism. Coming up soon will be a ‘biz’ structure. Note that this blog is under ‘tech’ which those two categories being essential. How many others will there be?
Using HTML has allowed us to have a file structure. With WP we are reintroducing the database. So, how to balance that? As early posts show, there is not end to these types of decisions.