Yep, I’m one of those people.
Couldn’t stick it out with a real hacker’s CMS, so I’m returning to my former flame, good old WordPress.
I’m sure I will miss the speed and security of having a database-less static site, but I just love WP too much. I thought Jekyll would be easier to administer (and it is really), but adding content was a bit of a pain – I don’t need a WYSIWYG editor, but I never really got the hang of Markdown. I’m almost as fast at writing HTML, plus I feel like I have a lot more control over the output.
I really missed being able to do anything server side. While javascript can do a huge amount, I found it a pain to have to use JS for everything dynamic, and having to use weird workarounds for all kinds of things that a database-driven CMS can do in its sleep.
Also, I really really really don’t like Ruby. Somehow I just don’t ‘get it’. I wanted to like Ruby but I try to do basic things and they just don’t work. I don’t have any examples off the top of my head, as I’ve purged them from memory, but I’m sure if I have to do any Ruby in future they’ll come flooding back.
Another reason is I mostly do WordPress sites for my clients. So not using WordPress on my own website is just a bit silly really.
For more ship-jumping reasons, you can read the blog of any other person who’s done the same thing. Funny thing is, many of those blog posts probably existed before I even started with Jekyll and I probably read them too, but I was sure I’d be different. I ignored the nagging doubt in the back of my mind and went for it anyway. And I’ve come crawling back.
So here’s to insecurity, constant site-breaking plugin updates and slow database queries! (I’m half kidding – these things are totally worth it for the awesomeness of WordPress).