Automattic, makers of WordPress, and development discipline

Showing all posts tagged: blogs

Automattic, makers of WordPress, and development discipline

21 October 2024

One of the things that makes me want to see Automattic stick around and grow is that they have a really large codebase that has been scaled, debugged and maintained for over 20 freaking years. And the most important thing — they don’t break users. The code I wrote to run against WordPress in the 00s still runs today. To me as a developer this speaks very loudly. It means it’s safe to develop here. It means there’s discipline in their development organization.

The on-going dispute between Automattic and WP Engine, the lawsuits and counter lawsuits, and staff departures, has me, as a long term WordPress user, a tad nervous. I could surely migrate to another publishing platform if it came to the crunch, and WordPress, somehow, ceased to exist. But would whatever I moved to have the same long-term development consistency and stability?

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blogs, technology, trends

One personal website is enough for me

15 October 2024

I’m not sure disassociated always rates as a personal website, with its informational content style. But it’s owned personally by me, and I personally write the content, so on that basis it’s a personal website. A lot of what I post are my thoughts on the many and various things happening online and in the world, so much of what appears here is my personal perspective.

I think I’ve said it a few times before, writing diary-like posts here seems pointless. I’m not sure what interest the ins and outs of my day-to-day life would be to anyone else. But writing diary-like posts is the precise definition of a personal website for some people. I’ve always seen the web as self-publishing platform: a platform to publish whatever you want. So if that’s informational content, or diary-like posts, that’s all fine.

A website whether you consider it personal or otherwise, is yours to do with as you please. Within reason. In that context, one personal website has always been enough for me. But a post by Kev Quirk, about bloggers who have multiple personal websites and blogs, has struck a chord with a few of the people whose RSS feeds I read. For some of us, it seems, one personal website is not enough.

Well, this is the web, and that’s an individual’s call to make. But to my mind, even two personal websites is one too many. Why, I wonder, do some bloggers feel the need to split their web presence? Maybe it’s a throwback to the idea supposedly propagated by Google that we should only be publishing niche blogs? That is, blogs focussed — mainly — on a single topic. In addition to being useful for readers looking for information on a particular subject, niche blogs enjoyed better SERPs placement, or something. Or so the story went.

Mind you, I’m not even sure Google actually said that. Maybe the notion was simply picked up by the people who blogged about blogging, and ended up being bandied ceaselessly around the blogosphere. A lot of my traffic comes in through Google, so clearly they’ve never been bothered by my non-niche blogging style.

But when it comes to having multiple blogs, it’s possible some bloggers want to separate different types of content, or feel not everything they write is suited to a particular blog. That I get, because I post a bit of what I call off-topic content to social media. Back in the day that was Twitter, which made for a great “side-dish” to a blogger’s main website. I don’t use Twitter/X anymore, but still post the same sort of content to the socials I have today, albeit at a greatly reduced rate.

Not everyone wants to post content on social media though. In that case then, I can see the point of something like Micro.blog. I don’t know a whole lot about the platform, but it seems similar to the likes of Mastodon, Threads, or Bluesky: it’s basically for micro-blogging. But even with something like Micro.blog, you still come back to the problem of content ownership, and the concern such platforms, like the social media channels, could close-down just like that.

It’s probably not likely to happen, especially to the established platforms, but it could be a problem if it did. That’s what I like about a single website. Even if my website host closed down overnight, I have the database and other content (e.g. photos) backed-up (in one place, well, more), and ready to potentially transfer elsewhere. Very little, hopefully, would be lost. Trying to recover years’ worth of posts from a closed social media channel might be another matter.

The blogging CMS I use lets me — if I chose — hide selected categories from the main feed/stream (or at least there is a way to make that happen because I did it before), in addition to serving up a separate RSS feed for each post category. If using social media becomes untenable, for whatever reason, in the future, I could always setup a separate off-topic content stream that would only be visible on certain parts of this website.

That seems to me to be the way to go. Everything on your own, single, self-hosted, website. And all in the true spirit of IndieWeb, or whatever you like to call it.

WordPress.org users required to denounce WP Engine affiliation

11 October 2024

Samantha Cole, writing at 404 Media:

The checkbox on the login page for WordPress.org asks users to confirm, “I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way, financially or otherwise.” Users who don’t check that box can’t log in or register a new account. As of Tuesday, that checkbox didn’t exist.

Automattic upping the ante in the on-going stouch with website hosting company WP Engine. I didn’t see this message when I logged into my WordPress (WP) account, Thursday afternoon AEDT. Maybe the roll-out is gradual, or (more fancifully) WP knows I host disassociated elsewhere.

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So long, thanks for all the blog posts: Microsoft cans WordPad

10 October 2024

Microsoft is doing away with their old basic, but useful, word processor, WordPad, which has been bundled with Windows Operating Systems for nearly thirty-years. It will not be a feature at all in Windows 11. Yet another reason to migrate away from Windows all together, perhaps?

Before switching to Word, I used to draft all my blog posts in WordPad. Now I use Writer. I did, still do, prep all the text and HTML tags when writing up a blog post, then copy and paste the lot into WordPress. When I migrated to WordPress in 2007, I used WordPad (heh, WP) to set out all the old blog posts from the old static, manually coded HTML webpages, onto an upload template. I later imported the template in the then new database on the WordPress install. So, WP to WP. The whole process took months, and I still look through the file today, which I’ve kept in an archive folder.

I expect the end game, on Microsoft’s part, is to push everyone onto Word. For a subscription.

Jeffrey Zeldman: I stayed, and declined an Automattic severance

8 October 2024

New York City based web designer, standards advocate, founder of A List Apart, and many other things, Jeffrey Zeldman:

I stayed because I believe in the work we do. I believe in the open web and owning your own content. I’ve devoted nearly three decades of work to this cause, and when I chose to move in-house, I knew there was only one house that would suit me. In nearly six years at Automattic, I’ve been able to do work that mattered to me and helped others, and I know that the best is yet to come.

I didn’t know Zeldman worked at Automattic, but I used to read his website/blog every day when I worked as a web designer.

Without getting involved in the WordPress/WP Engine imbroglio, the Automattic severance package seemed quite generous, given it catered for employees who disagreed with the company’s stance. It seems to me dissenting employees anywhere else would simply be shown the door.

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Indie Web, small web, social web, whatever web, my web

4 September 2024

There’s been a bit of a surge in discussion recently about Indie Web, and seemingly what it means to be a true adherent. This time the focus appears to be about what I’m going to call technical proficiency. From what I can gather, having your own website, with your own domain name, and your own content, isn’t quite making the Indie Web grade, in certain quarters.

Some people, who have the website, the domain, and the content, say they feel excluded because they’re apparently not doing more. Not doing more technical stuff. And I’d be in that category. It’s strange talk really. After all, Indie Web is many things to many people. There’s no Indie Web head office, dictating what we must, or must not do. But here, thankfully, is the sort of clarity we need:

Use wordpress if you want. Use Blogger. Hell, use Frontpage 98 if you want. Or learn some HTML And CSS and type it all up in notepad.exe. Or just HTML, don’t even bother with the CSS. Just make it yours.

Just make it yours. This was the web I always knew. I just came here to self-publish. To speak to whoever would listen to me. I started out with static HTML pages, on Notepad. Then I started adding CSS. I eventually arrived, ten years later, where I still am today, with WordPress.

Of course there were cashed up, corporate, players around in the late 1990’s trying to turn a profit on the web. But we, the personal, non-commercial, website people, who later became known as bloggers, co-existed quite harmoniously with this big-end of the web. We did our thing; they did theirs. And both parties, from what I saw, seemed to prosper in their own ways.

But that was back in the good old days.

Indie Web to me — and the definition seems to be subjective to some (quite some) degree — is a foil to what the web has become today, twenty to twenty-five years later. This despite the founding of the IndieWeb group in 2011. Indie Web, at its essence is our own place away from the corporate web, the social media behemoths, and the algorithms preventing us from finding the content we really seek.

I’ll admit to be being somewhat befuddled by the likes of webmentions, micro-formats, and ActivityPub protocol (which actually baffles me fully at present). Clearly these technologies serve a purpose, but in reality they don’t help me much with my primary objective here, which is to write.

If I’m not Indie Web enough then for someone, they can go somewhere else. But, with an attitude like that, I don’t know how much more “Indie Web” I could be. Well maybe. Thing is, I’ve never quite considered myself to be naturally Indie Web. Not one-hundred percent, as much as I like the general concept. Instead, I’ve often seen myself has being independent.

I’ve written as much on my about page:

The word disassociated has a number of meanings, but in this context it means to do my own thing, to go my own way, to have my own gig, to be independent.

So perhaps, independent web is a more suitable moniker in my case.

Hell, use Frontpage 98 if you want.

Perhaps though we could leave FrontPage out of this. I too had an ill-fated, though infinitesimally brief, run-in with the Microsoft (MS) product, many moons ago. FrontPage was a WYSIWYG website design editor with all good intentions, but terrible execution. What on earth, for example, were those server extensions that MS kept banging on about?

By 1998, the web was picking up momentum. People just wanted to get a website, usually a personal/family affair, online. And they wanted to do so pronto. They didn’t have the time or patience to learn about HTML, CSS, and FTP, let alone propriety server extensions. Too many, FrontPage must have seemed like the answer to their prayers. Until they opened the box*.

But look, if FrontPage is how you Indie Web, or just web, then don’t let me stop you. But please don’t come asking me for any help with those server extensions.

* this in the days when software apps literally arrived in a box.

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blogs, IndieWeb, technology, trends

Threat of AI, demise of blogging, the world in February 2015

15 August 2024

Since re-booting disassociated in May 2022, I’ve been slowly (incredibly slowly) restoring selected posts from the previous version of the blog that was online between 2007 and 2017. The restored posts are tagged legacy, and also include a few posts written prior to 2007, going back to 2003.

On checking as I typed this, I see there are presently seventy-four of the old posts back here now. Considering there were about twelve thousand posts originally, bringing back selected older posts is taking quite some time. I don’t intend to restore every last old post though. Some of them are now quite irrelevant and out-dated, and many include an abundance of dead links and long gone URLs.

If twelve-grand seems a lot, many posts were link-blog style, one-sentence affairs. My priority, when time permits, is bring back more of the article-type posts, such as film reviews. Anyway, to get to my point, a couple of posts I restored from February 2015, a mere nine-and-a-half-years ago now, still seem surprisingly relevant today.

One was about an apparently AI powered then Twitter account, called INTERESTING_JPG, which, although now inactive, remains online. INTERESTING would “look” at popular photos, and describe what it saw. INTERESTING’s accuracy was so-so, to the say the least. While AI is certainly a trending topic today, the concept has of course been present for a long time.

The other post I restored, which was originally published on 16 February 2015, was about the apparent demise of blogging, and personal websites. This not quite four years after the #IndieWeb movement, which is very much based on blogs and personal websites, was founded in 2011.

So there we have it. AI and #IndieWeb, two ideas that been with us for quite some time, but are, in a sense, making waves today.

disassociated turns twenty-one again, sort of

6 August 2024

This is — again: sort of — /timeline page content, which seems to be a bit popular on InterWebs and IndieWeb at the moment.

Today — or rather last Sunday 4 August 2024 — does not really mark the twenty-first birthday of disassociated. That would’ve been back in 2018, given the first non-blog inception of this website went online in 1997. But, the oldest, presently published blog post, dates back to Monday 4 August 2003. A post about the Windows Operating System (OS), NT4, that I’d been forced to stop using, after upgrading my then computer.

I had a few nice things to say about Windows OS’s back then, quite the contrast to the present time. Ever since properly rebooting disassociated in May 2022*, I’ve gradually been restoring selected old posts from the early days. The post I wrote twenty-one years ago, predates content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress, and was instead written onto a static HTML page.

In 2007, as I was preparing to migrate to WordPress, I spent several months copy and pasting several years of “blog” posts onto a template, I would later upload into my first WordPress database. WordPressing, was the term I used to describe that process. But anyway, there we have it. Twenty-one years (unless I restore even older posts, and there’s one or two), of blog posts at disassociated.

But then again, who doesn’t like turning twenty-one a few times?

* though I’d sort of been back since September 2021.

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LinkedIn, a professional network, or a blogging platform?

19 July 2024

Back in 2008, I had a brief tweet exchange with another Twitter member, about the merits of LinkedIn*. At that point, I was a member, but really didn’t like the platform. I thought having a personal website, showcasing your abilities, was a better idea. #IndieWeb me was thinking — all of sixteen years ago — before the #IndieWeb we know today, was a thing, personal websites were the way to go. I also didn’t like the idea of absorbing my identity into some Borg-like collective.

“But, being on LinkedIn makes networking with likeminded people easier,” replied the Twitter member (in words to that effect). He may have been right. If there were enough likeminded people there, perhaps someone could generate a few leads. But, I don’t know. LinkedIn is LinkedIn. It’s not for everyone. But then again, LinkedIn could almost be considered a blogging platform. All you need do is figure out LinkedIn-speak, which includes talking yourself up, way up, and you’re set.

And it seems you’re quite welcome to go overboard, quite overboard, as Thomas Mitchell, writing for The Sydney Morning Herald, notes:

This obsessive focus on accomplishments has transformed LinkedIn from a platform for managing your professional identity into a platform for managing your professional lies.

Earlier this year, US-based salesman Bryan Shankman went viral after using his recent engagement to talk about sales strategy in a LinkedIn post.

“I proposed to my girlfriend this weekend,” Shankman wrote in the caption before segueing into his business strategy. “Here’s what it taught me about B2B sales!”

Actually, there’s a heck of a lot of blog posts written in the same fashion. So, is LinkedIn a blogging platform? It could be, but you’re unlikely to ever see me reactivating my account, and writing there…

* I downloaded an archive of my then Twitter account a few years ago, before a mass delete and reboot, on the platform. It’s great to sometimes go and look at the long past conversations I had there.

To find #IndieWeb, more people need to know it exists

18 July 2024

JTR, writing at The Art Of Not Asking Why:

Indie blogs are like good spots in town. Sure, they’re on the map, but you need to ask the locals to point them out. In terms of indie blogs, this means other bloggers.

Word of mouth is sure a great way to spread the news about #IndieWeb blogs, but the problem is, I don’t think #IndieWeb itself is really on the map. You’re really depending on someone in the know, being able to you tell you #IndieWeb exists in the first place, who then directs you accordingly.

If some recent posts I’ve seen on Threads are anything to go by, people seem surprised personal websites and blogs are still a thing. What #IndieWeb really needs is a concerted publicity push. Something akin to Love your Bookshop Day, which we have in Australia, or Record Store Day.

But here’s the thing. There used to be something called Independents Day, but that was over twenty-years ago. I remember Jeffrey Zeldman, for one, writing about it. But imagine it: a day celebrating independent websites, and content producers, long before social networks were a thing.

At the time though, larger, corporate, websites were dominating, and beginning to smother the voice of smaller publishers. In a way, it’s a shame Independents Day didn’t go the distance, because today it would be a well established happening. Still, it’s never too late.

There’s nothing to stop an idea like Independents Day being revived, in one form or another. The goal, initially at least, should be to introduce the concept of #IndieWeb to a wider audience, and then from there, once people are asking about #IndieWeb, we can become the friendly locals pointing out what we consider to be the places of interest.

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