Drinkable Chicken

This is the first time that I use a server-side blogging tool for my weblog. For Tao of the Machine I first used Kaa, then Firedrop. Efectos Especiales used Firedrop as well, and Interstellar Overdrive used a weird command line based tool that I never bothered to make available, called IV. (All of these generate static HTML, which is then uploaded via FTP.) And so now I'm using WordPress.Hey, Dreamhost makes it extremely easy to install it, so I'm using it. :-) Also, I don't use my horrible HughesNet connection anymore, so online editing suddenly is feasible.

So far I like it. Mostly. It has its problems, but overall, the experience has been relatively painless.

WordPress has a large number of plugins, most of which are easy to install and use (like wp-table). It's also more configurable than I expected it to be, and it's easy to make (small) changes to its PHP code even if you don't actually know much PHP.

Editing in a browser is not ideal, but IMHO it's still preferable to using a tool like e.g. MarsEdit, since the web-based editor has features that external editors don't have. And I definitely don't want to write straight HTML.

That said, the WordPress editor is not optimal for inserting or editing code (using <pre>), and a few times so far it has managed to mess up my formatting (esp. when switching between the "Visual" and "Code" tabs). It also has the annoying habit of replacing "neutral" quotes (both single and double) with left and right versions, which isn't much of a problem in regular text, but it is when I want to display e.g. Python code (where an apostrophe should not look like a backtick).

(Fortunately, there's a way to change that behavior... in wp-includes/default-filters.php, comment out the lines that say

add_filter('bloginfo', 'wptexturize');

and the quotes show up normally. (via.))

All in all, I like it, probably more so than I initially thought. It beats having to write your own blogging tool. :-) I sometimes miss the flexibility of my home-grown systems, but then again I didn't use my macros *that* much.