Domain Registering and Hosting/Website Funny Business

[techlists at phpcoderusa.com]

Hi Steve,

This is a very interesting read.  Very old school and that is ok because 
I am old and I like old school. I like most things old school.  I will 
need some time to digest what you have shared.

My first website in 2000 was developed using PERL and some DB that I 
think might have been an early version of MySQL.

I've supported Drupal, WordPress, and Magento.  Not an expert of any one 
of them, however I did get down in the mud.

My second website was a PHP/MySQL home grown CMS.  I've since moved my 
websites to WordPress.  WordPress has a very large eco system and a 
substantial learning curve.  I've read and practiced both of the 
WordPress handbooks - themes and plugins.  Still do not feel comfortable 
creating themes or plugins for production.

As a programmer I like the freedom of creating my website from scratch.  
Creating a static website local and then uploading it to the server has 
it's appeal.  I need to ponder this for a few days or maybe longer.

About a year and a half ago I created https://www.phpprogrammer.org/ 
from scratch.  It is a simple CMS created using PHP/MySQL.  It was an 
experiment to see if an exact match domain would aid a website in 
ranking for that term.  At a high level I say maybe not.... jury is 
still out and I need to do more analysis.  I'm still learning and Google 
and the competition are a moving target.

For me your approach appeals to me because I like more control.  The 
drawback is when you get others involved and then you have to be the one 
who has to do the upgrades to the content and post those upgrades.  Been 
there and I like to turn the project over to the business owner or 
others in the company and let them make any change or add content at 
will.  WordPress is very good for this.

I'm thinking of changing https://www.phpprogrammer.org/ to wordpress and 
taking the present code and make it MVC, add a text/content editor and 
add access control (users and permissions).

Your approach is appealing.

I know someone who has some C programs that run on Linux that he feeds 
data to and it gives him a static HTML website.  He likes things that 
are minimal.



On 2022-07-28 08:50, Steve Litt wrote:
> On Thu, 2022-07-28 at 07:44 -0700, techlists at phpcoderusa.com wrote:
> 
>>> One other thing: There's a reason Troubleshooters.Com isn't a
>>> Drupal
>>> site or a
>>> Wordpress site or a Rails site or a Zope site. The minute a
>>> database
>>> becomes
>>> involved, both deployment and backup become much, much more
>>> difficult.
>> 
>> How do you create content and how do you maintain it ie, modify your
>> 
>> content?
> 
> The answer I'm about to give is for web pages without frequent (weekly
> through every second) changes. If you're making a shopping cart, blog,
> or social media site of course you need a database. That being said...
> 
> I make my web pages in VSCode, which is a zen-coding editor. Please do
> a web search on zen-coding because zen-coding is the key to high
> productivity when writing HTML. I do it right on my computer. My HTML5
> is written to be well formed XML so I can easily test with a Python
> XML parser and to make debugging easier. Nowadays, after it passes the
> XML test, I put it
> 
> The directory/file hierarchy on my computer hard disk is the same as
> the one online: I simply use sftp to transfer files. To transfer an
> entire site (perhaps your old web host went bad and you're moving to a
> new one), you have many choices. Here are two:
> 
> * Rsync the whole directory system
> * Make a .tgz on your computer, sftp it up to your web host, ssh in to
> your web host, and untar.
> 
> This isn't my first rodeo, so I know my suggestion will be greeted
> with howls of indignation:
> 
> 1) HTML is soooooo 1996!
> 2) My time's too valuable to code HTML!
> 3) I'm not a programmer! (usually spoken with a hint of pride)
> 4) I don't know HTML and CSS!
> 5) You should use Bootstrap instead!
> 
> Here's the truth about those assertions:
> 
> 1) This is a logical falacy called "Appeal to novelty", described at
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_novelty . New things can be
> good, and new things can be bad, so the choice must be made using
> other criteria. Note also that "Appeal to novelty" is typically hyped
> by those who want to reach into your pocketbook, whether it's a
> kitchen remodeller or car salesman wanting you to replace your
> perfectly functional kitchen or car, or whether it's a middleman like
> Wordpress.Com wanting to insert themselves in the middle of your
> STATIC content. Also, HTML is much better now than years ago, CSS is a
> work of art, and we have zen-coding editors now to double our
> productivity.

I do not host or do anything with with WordPress.com.

> 
> 2) Wait til you see how much time you need to spend when your web host
> goes bad, and you know that happens every few years.

I have S3 backups so I can move pretty fast.


> But if time is
> really the issue, go ahead and write your static content in Markdown
> or Asciidoc and convert it. You still have the source document, no
> database necessary.
> 
> 3) HTML and CSS aren't programming. They're just a grammar, and a
> pretty easy to learn grammar.
> 
> 4) With zen-coding editors, HTML is much easier to start using, and
> much quicker to learn. It's really not much of a challenge. CSS is
> dead bang simple.

I don't think CSS is as simple as you say.  It is rule based, however 
there is a lot to know.

> 
> 5) I can't argue to hard about this: Bootstrap is a good product that
> can produce good web pages in the hands of a skilled practitioner. The
> reasons I personally don't use Bootstrap is it adds over 100K of
> download to each page, it's harder to learn and deal with than HTML
> and CSS, and if you look at Bootstrap pages in the wild, most don't
> pass HTML validation, which means they'll render differently on
> different browsers.
> 
> Bottom line: Direct HTML editing is MUCH easier and faster than
> everyone thinks, and it yields web pages that look how you want on
> every competent browser.

This still leaves out the non-technical person. That is the beauty if 
Drupal and WordPress.  WordPress has 30% market share.


I think HTML is not all that easy when you are down in the mud creating 
web content.  There are some things to know and learn.

> 
> Once again, if you actually need data from users, by all means use a
> database. But for information-only pages, HTML/CSS is the better
> choice. If a page needs automation not requiring permanent storage of
> data, why not do the automation in Javascript?
> 

Good point about JS.

> I'm in the process of writing about all of this in detail. See
> http://troubleshooters.com/web/ [1] .
> 

Ok so your website has been around for maybe 26 years and has more than 
300 pages so I would think your website has at least some authority and 
I would imaging you get a fair amount of traffic.

Interesting approach.  I will need to ponder it for a few days or 
longer.  I think for someone who is technical and there is no need for 
others to get involved, your approach is great and I see the benefit of 
doing it your way.

> SteveT
> 
> 
> 
> Links:
> ------
> [1] http://troubleshooters.com/web/i