So I have to redo my website — big deal, eh? How hard could it be? Install a CMS, fiddle around with it’s settings a bit and you’re done.
Erm. Well, the only problem is that its not quite as simple for me.
Tribute to my good old CMS
I have been struggling to make up my mind whether to stick with the good old CMS that I coded back in 2003 (a.k.a. FuzedCore), or to just go with WordPress.
The first step is to forcefully overcome my obsession with FuzedCore. Not only that I had spent numerous hours coding it but it was also my first ever project that went live, served real traffic, and survived! So, you know a certain kind of attachment is almost ineluctable.
I extended it to become a small PHP framework that worked very well for rapid site development. I’ve used it in various freelance projects that I did over the years. It was the core for FAST-NU Karachi website (khi.nu.edu.pk) back in 2005-07 and was later used in Creative Chaos (by me, at my own discretion) when I was working there. I don’t know if they’re still used at either of the places anymore.
Shelving it
FuzedCore was under active development for as long as I was working in PHP up until 2007/08 but hasn’t been updated since then. I believe after three years of staleness any web project will either require an upgrade or be entitled for deprecation. So despite the fact that all previous versions of FuzedBulb were based on it, I finally made up my mind not to be stubborn about it and move on to better alternatives.
Having done that, I dug up the software from my repository and – what do you – it wasn’t that “out of fashion” after all. With some major refactoring I can probably bring it back to life. Anyhow, after recapping our unforgettable moments together, I decided to shelve it for now until I get the urge to brush some dust off my PHP skills.
The other option is to open-source it ofcourse – I haven’t made up my mind about it yet.
Going with WordPress
Once I overcame the obsession, the path was clear. I have installed the latest version of WordPress (as you can see, tada!). The plan now is to customize it with plugins and perhaps write a couple of custom ones along the way. Now I am no designer or an artist, but even then as far as the theme goes I don’t think I will grab a ready-made one because it’s no fun.
Oh and I have just put up this awesome timeline, check it out!
