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Design

sean purdy
sean purdy
2,770 Points

A question that's been on my mind...

I'm fairly new and i've had this question on my mind, so i'm used to creating blogs using Wordpress or Weebly for example but how would you go about it when coding, my main question is how do you create blog posts?? Usually if using wordpress i would click create post and then it gets uploaded but how would i add a post when I'm writing all the code??

1 Answer

Austin Whipple
Austin Whipple
29,725 Points

Well, you can hand code the site completely. Create the posts, add excerpts to a blog landing page, update category and tag pages manually. However, that would be an absolute nightmare to maintain.

You could build your own database and application (with PHP, Python, or some other server-side language) to automate certain aspects of each of those updates, so all you'd have to do is add a record to the database and the rest of the site would update itself, but that's also complicated business.

What you'd much rather do is take advantage of an existing (and often free) Content Management System (CMS) to do the hard work on the back end for you. Meanwhile, you're left free to focus on developing good content and, if you'd like, build a custom theme to showcase your design skills while not getting crazy/reinventing the wheel.

WordPress is an excellent one to do this with. It's free, has loads of community support, and is relatively easy to develop for. In fact, you can start with the WordPress Development track here on Treehouse. If you'd rather have a quick written summary, check out the Codex.

sean purdy
sean purdy
2,770 Points

Hey thanks just the answer i was looking for, yeah thats what i was trying to get my head around if you did it the coding route! Argh thats great then, so if i wanted a personal blog i'd do it the usual route using a CMS but then code a custom theme myself in an editor and upload that to wordpress right? Then i could use that as part of my portfolio as its the design i have created?