August 27, 2003
Christian Crumlish
Adrian Holovaty says, in a Zlog interview,
I believe in my heart that people should come up with their own publishing methods. Frankly, it's boring to surf the blogosphere and see so many sites using the same, tired weblogging tools. The same basic templates, the same "post a comment" form, the same URL schemes.... It's almost as if they're all small parts of one huge site.
Tom Coates disagrees and defends the one-big-siteness of the blogosphere.
I think I understand Adrian's point but even when he narrows it I can't agree:
Of course, I have a deep appreciation for how these tools have enabled hundreds of thousands of non-Web-developers to broadcast their ramblings on the Internet with minimal effort. But I have a much, much deeper appreciation for people who have taken the time to write a system for themselves. And as far as I'm concerned, people who do Web development for a living yet don't use a custom-built weblogging system shouldn't be trusted.
I believe in my heart that people should come up with their own transportation methods. Frankly, it's boring to drive around the Bay Area and see so many vehicles using the same, tired internal combustion engines. The same basic shape, the same "steering wheel" form, the same turn signals.... It's almost as if they're all small parts of one huge transportation system.
Of course, I have a deep appreciation for how these cars have enabled hundreds of thousands of non-engineers to travel with minimal effort. But I have a much, much deeper appreciation for people who have taken the time to build their own vehicles. And as far as I'm concerned, people who work on an assembly line in detroit yet don't drive a custom-built automobile shouldn't be trusted.
Posted by xian at August 27, 2003 11:03 PM
So crucify me. I do web dev for a living, but run 8 blogs at work and my personal blog on MT. Would it be fun to develop a blogging system from scratch? Sure it would. It would also be fun to spend some time with my wife and son. See the light of day once in a while. Oh, I don't know, maybe read a book, go skiing, or get stoned once in a while? Sheesh. These CMSes are tremendously complex beasts. Tens of thousands of lines of code. In the case of MT, tens of of thousands of lines of code executed with perfect respect for web standards and interoperability, which get upgraded for free and with some regularity. The functionality improves with a quick upgrade, while I spend my time working on programming / development challenges that are unique to my context.
It's only possible to do a lot with a little because of the efforts of armies of programmers out there building operating systems and web servers and scripting languages and content management systems etc for free. But yeah, I guess I would feel more wholesome if my workstation and web server were running my own homebrew OS and web server. Guess I'm just a poseur weenie.
Just because I *don't* develop my own blogging system doesn't mean I *couldn't* -- but it would be extremely stupid and wasteful of me to do so.
Sheesh.
P.S. The "sameness" of blogs is not due to the tools being used. Almost without exception, the templates that come with blog publishing systems are infinitely flexible. Anyone can create any look and feel they want with MT or other system.
The fact that most people hew pretty close to the defaults says everything about how much people care about putting in the effort to make sure they're not spewing boilerplate and nothing to do with limitations in MT or other systems.
Fact is, most of the default templates look really good and work really well. Maybe, just maybe, the point is to distinguish yourself with your words rather than your templates?
Excellent response Yo, Adrian...get a clue !!
I'm sorry Scot, but I don't trust you anymore.
Ack! I've lost xian's trust! My life in in shambles!
"I run 8 blogs at work." Scott Hacker is one lucky bastard to be doing it for a living! But he's right, I think. People without much Web publishing experience start out on Blogger and progress to Typepad or Radio if they are interested enough, and from there to something more radically customizable like a CMS. Or not. Each tool has its own appeal to a different kind of user. But then there's the point of view of Znarf: "Mais oui, chacun son CMS! Non à l'uniformisation du web!" I can't tell if Znarf is serious or not (probably not, but "to each their own CMS" is almost a reality these days, what with wiki-blogs and hosted blogs and open-source blogware everywhere). Still, it's interesting how some of the French digerati tend to pooh-pooh blogging in favor of what they call "CMS," which they think of as a much broader category of which the updated daily what I had for lunch personal journal forms only a small (and insignificant) part. Check out ++BoomTchak++, for example.
> "I run 8 blogs at work." Scott Hacker is one lucky bastard to be doing it for a living!
Let us be clear: I don't sit around all day tweaking MT. Set it and forget it. 4 zillion other tasks on deck at any given moment.
Progress to Radio? Progress from Radio you mean. Radio offers nothing but a confusing interface and a great aggregator. Otherwise, swing a wide berth around it is my advice.
We have much to learn from those wacky French.
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