I’ve been mucking around with inter-web stuff since I coded my first html 15 or 16 years ago. For me, the html web-markup was particularly easy because it followed two other mark-up languages I was familiar with, namely old-school type-setting code and Apple’s old “Hyper Card” programming language, which was, as I recall, just interpreted computer code.
The two guidelines? Twin letter S.
The first S is for Scale.
Scalability. Can the extant, underlying structure support growth, as in, this weblog gets ten hits a day, can is scale up to 100 or a thousand? Thousands?
I’ve watched as the current engine, Word Press has grown, mutated and adapted. I’m guessing that the current framework can support the needed bandwidth and hardware restrictions won’t throttle it too much. I’ve seen similar volume sites choke, but that’s when the hits go from 100 an hour to 1,000 per minute. That kind of traffic can choke even the most dedicated server. Besides, with that kind of traffic? I’m sure the owner can afford more bandwidth.
It is a fallacy that web traffic alone equates to dollars. There has to be something there to monetize the traffic, be it advertising or direct sales.
Scale, though, has a sister, Sustainable. Not to be confused with “renewable,” like the renewable resources of green energy versus the old tried-and-true method of just burning fossil fuels.
The situation with Scale, though, with my horoscopes? I’m almost at point where I can just upload/make available the scopes, right off my desktop/laptop, and that’s all that is required. Don’t need to do anything else. Scales nicely. The web journal continues to be source of experimentation, like the old tag line read, “Experiential and Experimental.”
The second S is for Sustainable.
For more than a decade, every Sunday night, or most Sunday evenings, I would be up and check, as the minions were supposed to load the new scopes. I took over, at some point, which just accentuated my Sunday night duties. Then, not quite ten years ago, at the behest of a then-publisher, I switched the publication date from Monday to Thursday, with an avowed target of getting into print distribution. Too bad I’m not suited for that format. Too long, too provincial. Not what this is about though, this is about the buzz word, “Sustainable.”
I automated the task, and then, for the last few months, I’ve also been toying with the Word Press software. Either way, to me, “sustainable” means I don’t have to work any harder at what I’m doing in order for the material to be distributed.
The illustrious side project falls in that category, neatly. Sustainable. I can, at any time, walk away from it, not update, not police comments, anything, nothing. It will run, by itself, without assistance, for some year and half, almost two.
In part, this is because I have a catalog/backlog of that many pictures. I stumbled into an incredibly rich treasure-trove of visceral visual whimsy. However, it also, in part, a labor of love that gets – but doesn’t require – daily tending. Like my current garden. I can ignore it for weeks at a time, and yet the plants keep growing. I can ignore the side project for up to a year, and it will keep ticking. I’ll have to pay the yearly hosting fee, but I think I leased that name for a few years.
Remind me of a cat. Sometimes cats require constant upkeep, but at some time in their cat lives, they become the perfect pet. Animal companion. Willing to share a little bacon or brisket, yet not really requiring much in the way of maintenance.
SkyFriday
When I build a website for my own fun? Scalability and Sustainability are higher than anything else as I don’t want to have to do any work.
I can’t ever lose track of why I started this in the first place, too: it must be amusing and fun for me, otherwise, why do it?
Scale, I got that. I can grow what I got by thousand percent or more, without doing any more work. Sustainable? How about on a more personal level, a metaphysical meaning? Oh yes, I’ve got that, too. Which is why I used the starting points I did.