100 days 2015 – 10 days in

For the past ten days I have been doing the 100 day challenge.

I decided to have a go at building my own e-commerce CMS.

I don’t have a big passion for e-commerce. In fact most of the time I work with e-commerce it frustrates me. But then I always remember hearing the old saying:

“The best way of complaining about something is to try and build something better”.

I won’t say which e-commerce CMS has me often cursing. Those who know me will know by the curses and moaning directed at it.

It feels good to be 10 days in. It’s also the longest commit streak ever on my github account.

I think the biggest thing I am taking away from my 100 day project is the learning I’m doing along the way. The outcome is kind of irrelevant at this point in time — although it would be nice to have something to show for it at the end.

The more I see how JavaScript gets used in websites I visit, the more I despair. Like when extra content gets loaded in, I click a link in that extra content to go to another page – so far, fine. But then if I click the back button in browser it won’t jump to where I was previously because that content isn’t there any more – not until I scroll down or click the ‘load more’ link at least. I dare say there is a responsible way to approach this. Here’s my idea – just paginate the results and provide page links. Zany idea I know.

I finally did it

Update: I’m now using WordPress again.

Ever since I can remember having my own website, for the most part, I have used WordPress. I’ve loved using it and will always recommend it to clients as being the best way for them to publish online. Of course, with me being a web developer I’m always wanting to tinker. There isn’t a day that goes by without me messing about with something on my site.A concept that I learned about, about six months ago or so, was that of the indieweb. Now this isn’t some new platform or anything like that. Rather it’s a set of principles, a way to approach publish on the web. In fact it’s the oldest method of publishing on the web: publishing on your own website.WordPress is great for publishing. But as my needs became more complex, and needing to make more fine grained choices when publishling different sorts of posts, I found my self neglecting to post notes/thoughts because the process of ticking the correct meta values and category was a bit combersome. The process adding a quick note or thought, like that of jotting something in a notepad, should be quick and effortless.So what I wanted was a stripped back UI from which to post notes, as well as other kinds of posts. Because of this I decided to go with a framework as opposed to a CMS platform, choosing ultimately to go with Laravel.The process is still on going as I still need to configure 301 redirects from my old site. But at least I am now publishing from my new site, and new domain, and it’s never been easier to do.