Look, Lister, no point feeling sorry about Holly. It’s a kindness. Like a blind old incontinent sheepdog, he’s had his day. Take him out to the barn with a double-barreled shotgun and blow the mother away. And I’m only saying that because I’m so fond of him.
A delicious line from the lips of love-to-hate-him Red Dwarf hologram, Arnold Rimmer. [1]
And it’s a bit how I feel about WordPress
You probably know the name. After all, it runs 43.1% of the world’s websites — give or take.
My story with WordPress began in the mists of 2005.
Back then it was great. It did the web page and blog post things well. Had plugins I could extend it with. And there were lots of options for themes.
And I liked being able to hack things myself with a bit of PHP code.
(I happened to be a PHP developer at the time.)
WordPress was the cool kid. Growing in popularity. And was a friendlier option compared to OG, Drupal — somewhat ironic now.
I knew it was a pretty safe bet to hitch my website wagon to it.
And:
On the whole… for me… WordPress worked
It’s been a faithful companion over the years.
But… over time… the more I grew to know it the more I saw it’s warts. And a few things began to irk me more and more.
And it’s not just me having a wee moan for the “fun” of it. Plenty of others felt it too.
One thing that gave me more grrr than a grizzly were its irksome themes.
It’s partly because, being a software developer, I’m used to telling computers EXACTLY what I want them to do… and they just do it.
But despite all the lovely designs available…
There was always a flexibility tradeoff about where you could put things on the page
And if you were someone like me who had a growing design eye, but didn’t want to be mucking around making my own themes, well…
It just became annoying not being able to place things where I wanted.
Every time I had to stare at a page of mine that had the text or image in one place…
… even though I had told it to: GO RIGHT THERE, DAMMIT!! …
… drove me to the brink of madness.
(That could explain a lot these days. 🤔)
And I know, I know, I know… themes are meant to make it easy for amateurs to use WordPress and set up websites. And to keep things consistent.
But look…
If I had a nickel for every amateur I’ve heard who griped about wanting just ONE thing moved to a different place but couldn’t…
… and it would take learning a heap of skills they don’t yet have or getting a pro to do it… well… you know how the saying goes.
And when you’re a “pro”… or fancy yourself one… and you ask nicely but WordPress just turns around and blows you a raspberry…
Well… it kinda sucks.
And there’s more I could share about WordPress woes. But just one sucky thing at a time will probably do.
So you’ll hear me talking from time-to-time about what made things so much better for me on the website front.
And where this WordPress refugee now rests his weary head.
For me, the solution was systeme.io.
I started using it in January 2022 and now it’s running all my websites.
It lets me put everything on the page — precisely where I want it to go.
Ahhh… BLISS!
I couldn’t be happier I made the switch.
Now, it might not be everyone’s thing. I get that.
And maybe WordPress is working just dandily for you.
But if it’s not, you may want to check out this page about using systeme.io as a free WordPress alternative. Read it here.
You can also sign up for a free-forever account from that page.
WordPress served me well for a long time…
But it’s long in the tooth. Incontinent. And has seen too many days.
I wonder what Rimmer would say if he were here?
[1] If you don’t know Red Dwarf… then, I’m sorry, but you need remedial Brit comedy coaching! I charge $100/hr and you can book a session here: https://milham.me/remedial-british-comedy
Ready to build your email list? Go here…
EmailForTheWin.com
Chris Milham