Post photo: example image | © Gerd Altmann on Pixabay
This is a well-known principle, the observance of which would certainly have saved me a lot of work and even more nerves in the last few decades, but I have never really been available for such profane advice.
And so it wasn't really surprising that I was confronted with an idea that was new to me, after I had just recently gotten my weblog on a very good footing and it was running almost by itself without any problems, namely one rather decentralized web system. This idea is called IndieWeb and has a very interesting following. And so it happened that I decided — even before I had really dealt with the basics myself — to redesign this weblog accordingly and immediately.
The result is that not only the blog readers can no longer find anything new or even well-known, but that I am now constantly confronted with what works and what doesn't work at all.
It wasn't very surprising to me either Detlef Stern also flirted with this idea and accordingly already own blog post in 2016 wrote about it — if only I had read it first!
I could now — thanks to today's technology — just hit the reset button and restore the last and perfectly working system, but that just wouldn't be me.
I could also start working with backups, but I still think this is completely exaggerated, and Detlef has certainly been waiting for several years for my whole “self-made” system to blow up in my face. And in the meantime he has used the waiting time to talk about his note store to offer a system that, in its simplicity and, above all, clarity, suits hobbyists like me particularly well.
Interestingly, I was able to read in other blogs that these ideas (HTML, IndieWeb and simplicity) had also moved other people before, and some of them, after their own attempts, returned to Word Press with their weblogs because it is still one of the the easiest systems to use.
I originally came from a completely different Web 2.0 corner myself and also got stuck with Word Press because of its simplicity; In the meantime, all of the previous systems I used may have migrated into digital nirvana, and Detlef will certainly want to point out that I could have saved their content with a functioning backup into this new era — could have, could have, bicycle chain.
In any case, very exciting weeks are waiting for me and not because of the current developments in our world or even just around me, but simply because of whether I will ever succeed in implementing the IndieWeb concept with this weblog. But no matter what the outcome, by the end of the whole campaign I'll know exactly what this IndieWeb is all about.
In addition to the principle "never change a running system", there is also the experimental setup of "trial and error" and this in the sense of heuristics.
And since we are already on the subject of principles and resolutions, this time I will limit myself to just one good resolution for the new year, namely to get this weblog up and running again in such a way that its maintenance and assembly is as easy as possible for me and me then no longer succumb to the temptation to make further fundamental changes to it. Because I too am slowly getting to the age when the principle “never change a running system” becomes quite understandable.
Finally, it only remains for me to wish all my readers a happy new year. Please stay safe and sound and appreciate my blog posts!
"C'était l'explosion du nouvel an : chaos de boue et de neige, traversé de mille carrosses, étincelant de joujoux et de bonbons, grouillant de cupidités et de désespoirs, délire officiel d'une grande ville fait pour troubler le cerveau du solitaire le plus fort.
Charles Baudelaire, Le Spleen de Paris, Un plaisant (2021 [1869]: 10)
Au milieu de ce tohu-bohu et de ce vacarme, un a trottait vivement, harcelé par un malotru armé d'un fouet.
Comme l'âne allait tourner l'angle d'un sidewalk, un beau monsieur ganté, verni, cruellement cravaté et emprisonné dans des habits tout neufs, s'inclina cérémonieusement devant l'humble bête, et lui dit, en ôtant son chapeau : “je vous la souhaite bonne et heureuse !” puis se retourna verse je ne sais quels camarades avec un air de fatuité, comme pour les prier d'ajouter leur approbation à son consentement.
L'âne ne vit pas ce beau plaisant, et continua de courir avec zele où l'appelait son devoir. Pour moi, je fus pris subitement d'une incommensurable rage contre ce magnifique imbécile, qui me parut concentrer en lui tout l'esprit de la France."
