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<h1 id="goodbye-wordpress-hello-jekyll-again">Goodbye WordPress, Hello Jekyll (Again)</h1>
<p>2020-08-13</p>
<p>For the past four months this blog has been running on WordPress - but that ended today. I’ve officially switched back over to Jekyll. I’m not going to spend too much time delving into <em>why</em> I made the transition back, but I’ll leave some cliff-notes for any interested parties.</p>
<h2 id="the-big-issues-with-my-wordpress-setup">The big issues with <em>my</em> WordPress setup</h2>
<p>I have to state that these problems existed based on <em>my own</em> setup / hosting choices with WordPress - this is not a direct reflection of WP itself.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>No theme editor access</strong>
<ul>
<li>I was using EasyWP (Namecheap etc.) for my web hosting. It only cost me $3.88/month, which was very cheap for the quality of service provided. Unfortunately, this low price came with some setbacks. EasyWP doesn’t allow users to edit <code>header.php</code> or <code>functions.php</code> files directly in the theme editor. Having to resort to FTP for simple one-line change was annoying.</li>
</ul></li>
<li><strong>Super cache</strong>
<ul>
<li>Caching web pages is wonderful for users on subsequent visits, but EasyWP took this to the extreme. Making minor styling updates sometimes required code changes in the <code>header.php</code> file directly in order to persist (see problem with editing these files in point #1).</li>
</ul></li>
<li><strong>Monthly cost</strong>
<ul>
<li>As I stated above, spending $3.88 on a monthly basis was peanuts in the grand scheme of things. Still, an extra monthly subscription for a side hobby seemed overkill for my use case.</li>
</ul></li>
<li><strong>Future proofing</strong>
<ul>
<li>In the end, having the core website generate itself into static files means it will stand the test of time on the interwebs. HTML & CSS FTW.</li>
</ul></li>
</ol>
<h2 id="what-i-lost-in-the-switch">What I lost in the switch</h2>
<ol>
<li><strong>Comments</strong>
<ul>
<li>I loved the concept of owing / hosting comments directly on each post but this seemed like a fair trade-off when compared to the positives listed above. I might circle back around and use something like <a href="https://commento.io/">Commento</a> or <a href="https://github.com/imsun/gitment">Gitment</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li><strong>Blog anywhere</strong>
<ul>
<li>Having the ability to hop on any machine, log in to my site and blog was awesome. Over time though, I found myself not doing this very often. Most times when composing an article I found I would write it out, edit and publish all in one sitting. Cool concept - just not as useful.</li>
</ul></li>
</ol>
<h2 id="moving-forward">Moving forward</h2>
<p>I’ve learned to stick with what keeps me productive (and in this case, keeps me writing consistently). I still love WordPress and won’t hesitate to reach for it when the need arrives. Unfortunately, it seems my personal website isn’t one of those instances.</p>
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