As my readers (both of you) will have observed, my blog has been out of commission for almost a month. You will also have observed that, coming back up now, it looks radically different. There is a good reason for this.
Sometime near the end of August, I became aware of a worm that was spreading through unpatched Wordpress blogs. This isn't particularly any fault of Wordpress; software is buggy, regardless of what you try to do to fix it. The only question is how buggy. Generally, I think Wordpress has done pretty well, and they have a very successful project.
That said, however, I have come to realize that the needs of this blogger are far simpler than the abilities of Wordpress. Faced with the decision to patch Wordpress on my site or do something else, I started thinking about what it was I actually needed.
I am technically savvy, so I don't need the software to be super user-friendly.
The vast majority of comments left are spam, and I can count the real comments I've received on my blog on one hand.
The load time is, actually, kind of slow, mostly due to the complexity of the page, but also because of the complexity of the backend.
A simpler solution should be possible.
Well, I sat down and I started coding, and I have created new software that is now running the site, called BOTTLE, which stands for Blogs Ought To Take Less Effort. Although it is still very primitive at this point, it is never intended to reach the level of complexity found in other blog software. It applies the K.I.S.S. principle to blogging: keep it simple, stupid!
Unlike other blog software, BOTTLE runs on my local computer, (off of a thumb drive, even) and produces output in the form of all static pages. To some, this sounds like a step backward, but I have to ask: why? Why complicate the simple?
Despite this, BOTTLE provides tagging, and RSS feeds (both a general one and ones for each tag) are in the works.
Watch for other features as time progresses. Eventually, I will release it as an open-source project, but it is a little too rough-cut just yet.
Enjoy!