I've published my blog on the new blogging platform I built. Exciting times!
I've done a lot of security and other testing, but to know how it works there's no better way than using it FOR REAL.
If you've been to my blog before, you may not notice a big difference in the design, but it's a bit faster, and the comment form is different. But behind the scenes it's VERY different. I can use a text editor on my laptop or ipad. No logins, no "Wordpress can't process this image", no plugins that I shouldn't need, no background updates that can make things crash.
This is a simple blogging app built on text files only, which means I update the blog by putting text files and photos on a server and that's it. I now have a completely different workflow with writing. For a pleasant and distraction-free writing experience I can quit all other apps on my laptop, put the text editor in full screen mode, and it's just me and my words. This is something I've wanted for years.
Don't get me wrong, I love what Wordpress has become in recent years and I'll still use it for certain projects, but for blogging I prefer something more simplistic.
I created this with something called vibe coding. I decided what features I needed, how I needed them to work, and then used an AI desktop tool to help me write the source code. Most of the frontend design and layout is made by myself with HTML and CSS.
Vibe coding has a negative reputation. Personally I still don't recommend it and I likely won't use it for anything else than personal projects (unless I can consult a professional human to review the code). I still promote learning coding languages and making things yourself. If I were young and had a lot of time on my hands it's possible I'd learn more advanced coding myself, but I'm 50+, want to spend my time on another career venture and just want a simple blogging app, and for cases like this I can see how AI tools can be helpful. I now have a blogging platform that I really enjoy using.
I still feel ashamed of using an AI tool for this, because I genuinely hate how AI has the potential of killing career possibilities (including my own), how it has been trained on existing (stolen) material, and more than anything I hate what AI has become in modern technology, how it's shoved into your face EVERYWHERE and destroys decent platforms.
But there are ifs and buts.
If a blogging platform like this existed, I'd happily pay for it. But the thing is - it didn't exist. Nobody wants to build anything like this. I've been looking high and low for a project like this, but there are only ultra-basic tools on Github, and most of them don't work, don't work like I need them to, or the projects have been abandoned. There are apps like Grav or Bludit, but they don't have the features I need.
The problem is that nobody wants to build another blogging tool mostly because "we already have Wordpress, Ghost etc, why would we need something more?". So when I wanted to spend a weekend doing something different and my husband suggested I'd try to build a CMS this way, I was all in. I never thought it would work, but it did.
When it comes to the "there's no need for web developers anymore" statement, that is BS.
To begin with, I would never have been able to build this without already having some coding skills, or without knowing how a CMS works, what features you need for x and y and how they should work, or about security risks. Lots of scanning, testing, reviewing and rebuilding has happened. I don't recommend doing anything like this if you're a pure beginner.
To then be able to use the thing I've needed to dip my toes into much more advanced tools, like Docker, Git, Command line tools, SSH, and more "behind-the-scenes" things. So for me, playing with an AI tool made me LEARN things. Useful things.
We won't be able to escape AI, and AI tools can be fine as long as they are used as optional TOOLS, not replacements for humans or your own brain. My writing will always be my own. Likewise my photos and my designs. I enjoy learning and making things myself, and AI will always be the last resort. That's all.
Do you follow me using the RSS feed?
If you somehow found this post and you were following me through your RSS reader, you need to update the feed url. The feed now is https://rebellingstrong.com/rss.xml. The photo blog feed will follow the same structure once it's migrated.
Top photo by Daniil Komov: https://www.pexels.com/photo/cozy-workspace-with-coding-on-laptop-screen-34803983/
Comments
Thank you for sharing about the behind the scenes work — literally! I haven’t taken any programming since we learned Basic in 8th grade on the school’s (one and only) shiny new Apple computer — not sure it was even called a Mac back in 1979. ;-)
I also hate those factors behind AI, but now that the cow is out of the barn, if we don’t climb on we will be left behind.
I agree about the cow (wonderful expression by the way!)! There's no point trying to pretend that AI doesn't exist. I will still stay away from the negative aspects of it, and embrace what is useful but use it responsibly.
I had to look up Apple in the 70s! In 1979 they released something called Apple II Plus. :) I think we had something like that at my college in the early 2000s. Even then I felt it looked like something antique!
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