Wanted to launch a personal coding blog. Where should I start?

[mrchow19910319]

I want to launch a personal website/blog so I can write about my coding journey and so on and so for. 

I have no idea where to start. 

 

• where do I go to buy a domain name? 
• should I go to wordpress? 
• what about backend? 

 

I want to have full control with my front end which means that I wanna build my front end from ground up. 

Using HTML CSS as well as JS. I am not sure whether squrespace let me do this kind of stuff. If they only provide template, then I think I will pass.

The back end stuff I am not so sure... what should I have? 

Let's say I wanna log in as admin, wrote the article then upload it to front end. Is this how its done? 

Maybe I should follow this guide?  https://medium.freecodecamp.org/off-with-their-heads-building-a-headless-wordpress-to-manage-content-bb04e6b2a792

 

 

 

 

Here are some of the example I find online, I just would like to build something similar, where I can go log in, and write a bunch of articles every week. 

• https://www.macsparky.com/
• http://www.macalope.com/

 

So which should I choose? Wordpress? Heroku?? 

 

[Guest]

You can use YouTube. 

I have a google site which is a bit tedious at times but is pretty neat to use. 

sites.google.com/sites/YourWebName

[WereCatf]

44 minutes ago, mrchow19910319 said:

I want to launch a personal website/blog so I can write about my coding journey and so on and so for. 

I have no idea where to start. 

 

• where do I go to buy a domain name? 
• should I go to wordpress? 
• what about backend? 

 

I want to have full control with my front end which means that I wanna build my front end from ground up.

If you wanna do it both so that you have complete control over everything (and thus also carry responsibility for any mistakes and failures!) and to learn, going with e.g. a Linux-system, with Apache as the web-server and Wordpress as the CMS, is a good way. You are free to muck about with anything and everything to your liking, then.

 

As for the domain-name, I happen to like using Namecheap's services, and I've been their customer for years now.

[AskTJ]

Use Squarespace. I had one of my dads friends uses Wordpress for his accounting business, and his server falls asleep, meaning the user has to wait 20 seconds for the page to fully load up. Use Squarespace for your blog, and buy a domain separately to host.

[mrchow19910319]

Just now, WereCatf said:

If you wanna do it both so that you have complete control over everything (and thus also carry responsibility for any mistakes and failures!) and to learn, going with e.g. a Linux-system, with Apache as the web-server and Wordpress as the CMS, is a good way. You are free to muck about with anything and everything to your liking, then.

 

As for the domain-name, I happen to like using Namecheap's services, and I've been their customer for years now.

I see. I will take a look at it. Thanks! 

[Meic]

36 minutes ago, mrchow19910319 said:

I see. I will take a look at it. Thanks! 

You can use Google Cloud Platform Free Tier (https://cloud.google.com/free/) to get a basic server and db setup at no cost. This should do you for a while until your blog grows.

 

2 hours ago, mrchow19910319 said:

where do I go to buy a domain name? 

I currently use 123-reg.co.uk and never had an issue.

 

2 hours ago, mrchow19910319 said:

should I go to wordpress? 

what about backend? 

Wordpress is very popular so it's a good skill to have. Do you have a prefered programming language for backend? e.g. if you know some PHP then wordpress is good, if you are a Python guy then Django is worth a look, if JS is your thing then take a look at node.js frameworks... etc.

 

 

[Cruorzy]

Doing something like this requires a real challenge IMO, so building everything from the ground up.

Front-end, Back-end, everything.

 

Using squarespace for making a blog while its about coding seems kind of weak to me.

You want to experience everything that comes with it, security wise etc.

 

Don't buy a domain or hosting service start locally till its in a certain stage where it's acceptable to put online.

[bowrilla]

Just go with any web hoster. You don't need root access for a simple blog if it's based on Wordpress or similar software. Since you're a beginner as it seems, don't hassle around with server stuff you don't need to touch. Wordpress runs out of the box pretty easily on any webspace as it doesn't need anything else than a MySQL or MariaDB Database and PHP support. There are tons of guides out there. You can write your own themes and templates, learn a bit or two about PHP and you're good to go. Using squarespace or any other similar service is imho missing the point since you want to learn that stuff. It gets trickier if you want to use systems written in Ruby, Python or Javascript/Node – you'll need more control over the server (usually, some hoster do support them out of the box as well).

 

Most hoster offer domain packages so you don't really need to worry about that.

[mrchow19910319]

On 6/19/2018 at 8:45 PM, bowrilla said:

Just go with any web hoster. You don't need root access for a simple blog if it's based on Wordpress or similar software. Since you're a beginner as it seems, don't hassle around with server stuff you don't need to touch. Wordpress runs out of the box pretty easily on any webspace as it doesn't need anything else than a MySQL or MariaDB Database and PHP support. There are tons of guides out there. You can write your own themes and templates, learn a bit or two about PHP and you're good to go. Using squarespace or any other similar service is imho missing the point since you want to learn that stuff. It gets trickier if you want to use systems written in Ruby, Python or Javascript/Node – you'll need more control over the server (usually, some hoster do support them out of the box as well).

 

Most hoster offer domain packages so you don't really need to worry about that.

just scrambled a quite simplistic blog site: 

 

http://slowpacedcoding.com/ 

 

also I just realized that some of the blog theme is not even responsive.... or not fully responsive,,, I may as well write my own HTML and CSS for it.....