After more than a year, I have decided to rethink the design of GloryKidd’s main website. The old design was getting, well, old. I think that it served its purpose, but things have to change to keep up.
After much thought and time investment, I think that the new site will offer some great possibilities. This incarnation of GloryKidd.com will focus less on project tracking, and more on information. It will feature a WordPress blog, to enable me to keep new content flowing into the site.
Well, lets see how this goes. I think that the last major change on glorykidd’s website was almost 2 years ago. Over the last 15 years GloryKidd has changed its website look and feel several times, each one was a change not only to the look and feel, but also the underlying technology running it.
Here is some of the versions I can remember:
- Original release – This would have been sometime in 93 or 94. The first generation was mostly static HTML, with some fancy javascripts thrown in to make it seem flashy. Wow, that was the ticket back then! I did not even have a server to host it on back then, and had to work with some lame ISP to host it for me.
- Second generation – This release used some cutting edge technology (for 1996) – “ASP”. This was amazing stuff, I was able to do all kinds of cool things like store information in databases. I also got my first generation server to host it myself. Of course the “server” was just a hyped up desktop machine, but it was cool having total control of it.
- Generation 3 – Released somewhere between 1999 and 2000. I was learning some great new stuff called .net. It was supposed to be all the rage, and completely take over the world. The 1.0 and 1.1 .net framework was cool and added some great new components to web design. Now websites could really do some great stuff. With the skyrocketing costs of Microsoft’s operating systems, I started looking for alternatives for windows. Enter mono, and total cost savings!
- Generation 4 – Released 2002. I was growing in the software industry experience, and accordingly expanding GloryKidd’s technology. I updated the entire site with some new functionality, and migrated it to the 2.0 framework. Traded MSSql for MySql and never looked back. This was also the last generation of GloryKidd that used any Microsoft based technology.
- Generation 5 – Released 2005. I had a brief stint with using php, then jumped on the Ruby on Rails wagon. Rails allowed me to rapidly make changes to the website, and provided great stability. I was impressed by how easy it was to use, and how powerful the language was. Was there no limit to what it could do?
Where will GloryKidd take me in the future? I don’t have an answer for that just yet. It has been a great ride thus far and the future is yet unwritten. I look forward to great things!
