New Beginning, Mark II

All is changing here at BeholdingEye, for the second time since February 2016, when the original New Beginning post was published on the old version of this website.

The big change is that WordPress is now used for construction of the site, instead of my own tool Quicknr. My needs and skills have outgrown the simplicity of a static, file-based website that Quicknr proved to be excellent for. I require a database-driven site and there is no better tool for that than WordPress.

When I wrote my original New Beginning post, Python was my programming language of choice, the only one I was fully proficient at using (besides HTML, CSS and Javascript at intermediate level). In the 18 months since then, I have reached the same level of proficiency in PHP and indeed Javascript, scoring well in Upwork tests:

I’ve had the good fortune of securing enough work on Upwork to get by, with most of the 23 completed jobs an interesting challenge. Projects such as a 3D printed insole product configurator, an educational website and user survey, an Admin interface, and even a Raspberry Pi set up as a WiFi access point. In addition, in whatever spare time I could afford, I created a number of website portfolio samples, as well as more open source software on GitHub. Most relevant of the software at this moment is QNRWP-A, my WordPress theme that is being used here. WordPress, with QNRWP-A, will enable me to better feature my work. I am once again excited by the possibilities.

This is a good moment to say something about WordPress. Two things, in fact, good and bad. I’ll cover the bad first, so I can end on a positive note:

• WordPress, the way that it is used by great majority of its users, is hell, pure hell. Burning fires, red hot charcoals, grinning devils, it’s all there, hell as you have ever imagined! I’m referring to the “ecosystem” of WordPress, the easy way that anyone can pick up a theme and get a website started with almost no skill at all. Whatever functionality you need in addition to the theme, there is a plugin for it. So where’s the problem? There isn’t just one problem, there are many. I have seen client websites so bloated with layers of code that the first page takes 14 seconds to load – and this is not exceptional for a WordPress site. Apart from buddyPress and possibly WooCommerce, I have yet to see a single plugin that is worth installing. Free versions in particular are useless, a mere enticement to pay for an upgrade. Conflicts are the norm, and freelancers are then hired to fix them. It makes my eyes water when I see clients using SEO and caching plugins, trying to fix the unfixable. There is an old saying, “you can’t polish a turd”, and it applies to most WordPress websites. It is not at all surprising that many professional PHP coders refuse to work with WordPress.
• Yet, in its own right, WordPress is the best there is. It is the most developed web publishing platform available, nothing else comes close. Drupal, Joomla, Django, Laravel, etc. etc. Some of these others are CMSs, some are MVC frameworks, all well made, all worthwhile, but with one important difference: they don’t match WordPress on the wide range of high-level functions and hooks, enabling faster workflow than any of the others can support. Time is money, for clients and freelancers, and this difference proves decisive. In addition, the WordPress Codex documentation is quite excellent, as is the community. For me, working with WordPress is a pleasure. The challenge is in choosing the right projects, the kind where the clients don’t expect to become webmasters themselves once the site is handed over. Failing that, working on custom plugins, even for clients with bloated WordPress websites as described in point 1 is OK – provided I’m squinting when looking at their Dashboard!

Stay tuned for more as this new BeholdingEye is fleshed out with content and features. The old Quicknr-based website will remain for now, and will be deleted when no longer relevant. (Edit 2017-10-07: Upwork Test image updated to include the WordPress Test result.)