On Mad Thoughts of Blogging and Coding

This morning, I had a moment of insanity.

Or rather, I had a random thought and then my brain simply would not let it go. Even now, it’s not entirely willing to disengage from the idea, even though I know it’s a stupid idea.

It has to do with my website redesign, which I plan to begin testing in the next two weeks.

The PHP code is written. I have to upload it to my test server and make some CSS fixes.

Morning brainwave: “Why don’t I rewrite the theme files for Habari?”

Habari is a different blogging platform, created by some disaffected WordPress coders. Superficially, it’s similar, but under the hood it’s vastly different.

Now, at one time I did have an Habari test blog, and I did port a WordPress theme over to Habari and it worked. And there were some things about Habari that I liked; for one thing, it was leaner and meaner. (WordPress has, quite frankly, gotten a little big and a lot bloated.)

But this theme isn’t just a blog theme. It’s a magazine-styled theme.

I looked at the Habari wiki, and it looks like there’s a lot I could make work, but there’s some important features that I couldn’t. Post thumbnails, for one thing! And I’m unclear on how multiple loops work. Or child pages. For that matter, does Habari even do pages?

That said, I can’t say that I wouldn’t enjoy the challenge of making something complex work with a complicated system that’s largely beyond my current understanding. It fits my tinkerer’s mentality.

It’s a crazy idea, and I know I’m better off with what I currently have in the pipeline. I tell myself this. And yet, this crazy Habari idea has lodged itself in my head and it won’t leave.

I know what it is. My brain likes crazy, stupid challenges. It’s a way to put off work. Or, in this case, putting off testing the code. It’s an excuse for a working kind of procrastination.

The insanity moment will pass soon enough.

Published by Allyn

A writer, editor, journalist, sometimes coder, occasional historian, and all-around scholar, Allyn Gibson is the writer for Diamond Comic Distributors' monthly PREVIEWS catalog, used by comic book shops and throughout the comics industry, and the editor for its monthly order forms. In his over ten years in the industry, Allyn has interviewed comics creators and pop culture celebrities, covered conventions, analyzed industry revenue trends, and written copy for comics, toys, and other pop culture merchandise. Allyn is also known for his short fiction (including the Star Trek story "Make-Believe,"the Doctor Who short story "The Spindle of Necessity," and the ReDeus story "The Ginger Kid"). Allyn has been blogging regularly with WordPress since 2004.

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