Simple PHP Blog 0.5.0.1, a maintenance release, went public on Tuesday of this week. I know I don't talk too much about it here, but I still like to keep at least one eye open on this particular blogging application. For you see, I consider Simple PHP Blog my very first Web content management system (WCMS).
Three or four years ago was when I began my exploration into the world of Web content management systems for personal use. It was a period of transition for me. My primary Web language was slowly shifting from Perl to PHP. I also had a strong desire to move away from static HTML pages for my "family" site to something a little more dynamic and evolving. However, while I was ready to take on the CMS I wasn't ready to fork over the extra money my host provider was asking for a single MySQL database. Until my hosting contract was up, I only had one choice...install a CMS that stored the data on the drive as "flat files" instead of an online database.
So I chose Simple PHP Blog as my first CMS via a blog. In a lot of ways, there really isn't much difference between Simple PHP Blog and other blogging applications such as Nucleus CMS and Wordpress. The exception of course is the fact that Simple PHP Blog doesn't need a database. Over time though, I found that data stored in a text files can get corrupted much easier than if the data was stored in an actual database. I also found , for the most part, open source projects and their users prefer the use of an SQL database to store their data. So eventually, I made the inevitable decision of migrating to such Web applications as Wordpress and Drupal.
While it has been a couple years since I have used Simple PHP Blog, I'm glad the project is still alive. There are too many people that have the desire to use a CMS, but for whatever reason are hesitant to leave the "flat files" behind. To be honest, if it wasn't for Simple PHP Blog I wouldn't have had the courage to have taken the next step on my own into using a CMS with a database (though work likely would have kicked me in that direction anyway). One often needs to take baby steps when learning something new and for me Simple PHP Blog was that important first big step. Thank you Simple PHP Blog!