Well, I tried a couple of other tools before I got here, and my thoughts were:
- Blogger – generates invalid XHTML, and the domain I wanted was taken;
- infogami – uses its own markup language, which I can’t be bothered learning;
- WordPress – generates valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional.
Now, if I have to use XHTML, I’d prefer Strict to Transitional. And in fact, given that most of the world is using a browser that can’t properly handle XHTML at all, I’d rather be using HTML 4.01 Strict. But WordPress looks the best of the bunch so far.
And I’ve just spent 3/4 of an hour trying out the various WordPress “Themes” (What’s wrong with “styles”, Guys?), and come back to the default – somebody has given this a lot of thought.
21 September, 2006 at 12:15 pm |
Another point about WordPress vs Blogger is that the former allows RSS feeds to threads – ie it tells you when there’s a new comment – while the latter only gives a feed to the top page – ie it tells you when there’s been a new post.
In terms of design, this kind of thing is probably more important in terms of utility than the validity of its html. Poor html will – these days, by and large – affect relatively few people.
Agreed, though, Blogger’s html generation is particularly shite.
21 September, 2006 at 8:34 pm |
I take your point about the valid HTML thing, and thanks for pointing out the RSS comments business. I’ve noticed a couple of other things since I started using WordPress. Whereas Blogger would allow me to tailor the CSS for free, WP will charge me a one-off $15 for the privilege – big deal! WP makes it easy to tag posts with categories, and to search other people’s blogs for categories of interest – check out the tags page to see what people are blogging about. I’m still not sure whether this is a gimmick or a genuinely useful tool, but it’s an interesting idea. My main complaint about WP is that it often seems slooow.