Rebuilding No More
Posted on Friday, May 14th, 2004 at 17:28.
As announced today, Movable Type 3.0 is no longer fully free. I have been evaluating different blogging scripts since the very first day that I installed Movable Type. I hate it’s constant rebuilding, default comment pop-up configuration, and intensive file storage requirements (for all those pages that must be constantly rebuilt).
The generous folks (actually, the CEO) at pMachine gave me a free license for its newest blog tool offering: ExpressionEngine. I installed it and imported my Movable Type data last weekend. So why haven’t I kissed Movable Type good-bye? Because ExpressionEngine is lacking and unpolished. While ExpressionEngine rocks my world with innovative backend and frontend features that no other blogging scripts offer, the dynamic URLs are so unnecessarily illogical with no hope for improvement that I cannot commit to deploying it publicly.
Movable Type does offer one feature that ExpressionEngine cannot: flexibility to migrate away. I have never been happy with Movable Type, but I can import its output into any blogging software package I choose. Every other blogging script is vying for some of Movable Type’s marketshare and, therefore, offers the ability to import Movable Type data. No blogging scripts (to my knowledge) will import ExpressionEngine’s output or database structure. Once I transition to ExpressionEngine, I am stuck with it. So until I am 95% happy with ExpressionEngine, I am sticking with the horrid Movable Type just in case I decide to go with WordPress instead.
For the record, Jeremiah.biz project-in-progress LiveWireRadio.us uses WordPress successfully.
Mark Pilgrim did indeed switch to WordPress as a result:
http://diveintomark.org/archives/2004/05/14/freedom-0
though his article is somewhat on the controversial side, eg: “All non-Free software is a dead end.”
Jeremiah, I agree with you for the most part. I just installed the free version of MT 3.0 at http://www.webbyaquatics.com It’s decent Once I get MySQL set up on my host (Thanks Jeremiah for the recommendation), I will give expression engine since I too got it as a gift from pMachine.
Jeremiah… I don’t mean to be offensive, I commend a critical eye. I just feel like when I read your blog I don’t read as much about what you are satisfied with as what you don’t like, and your exploitation of small (seemingly shruggable) quirks. have you ever seen thumbwars? you remind me of Loke. :-) anyway, have a good one.
David:
I am critical of most things, but I am an optimist in life. If I take the time to be critical, then I obviously care enough to wish improvement. My criticisms are usually accompanied by specifics, not simply blank statements. I will try to promote more positive things. My links postings usually do this.
However, I do dislike Movable Type. Movable Type creates static HTML pages from a database. Currently, my Movable Type directory (sans the media files) is over TWICE the size of my ExpressionEngine directory. The gap will only increase. ExpressionEngine’s dynamic display and intelligent caching requires only the database to grow and one entry into the database requires less disk space than a database entry plus a corresponding HTML page.
Rebuilding files in Movable Type is a chore that is far too frequent. Should I really have to rebuild my whole site just because I deleted a few comment spams?
Pop-ups are evil. There is no use for them. ever. I could change the template and make them not-pop-ups but my effort is better spent creating a template for a content management system that doesn’t annoy me as much.
I actually like MT quite a bit but I am considering options; EE being one of them.
I squashed the MT pop-up deal a long time ago – simple template stuff (if you like redesigning templates). And I’m not a fan of rebuilding but I prefer that situation to the dynamic URL weirdness you describe. WordPress has failed to impress me.
I must do more research.
Be sure to take a look at pLog as well:
http://plogworld.org/
I haven’t yet tried it myself, but it looks like a good content management system.
Also check out Mambo:
http://mamboserver.com/
I use this on my site, but it’s actually not a blogging tool. It’s more of full featured content management system.
Good luck with your choice! :-)