What Was
Since it launched, brettro.com was a full-scale website coded with XHTML 1.0, CSS 2.1 and Javascript using industry best practices based in web standards. It also used a very capable web content management system called Big Medium. In that time, Brettro adopted the use of both CSS and Javascript frameworks to make delivering websites more efficient and affording its clients the ability to use multiple designers and developers should they need to.
What Is
What you see today is an interim Brettro website. Using WordPress 3.0 and a very basic custom WordPress theme, brettro.com will be largely blog-based as it explores the best route to adopt new, important better, cutting edge and forward-thinking technologies.
Those technologies are:
- HTML5 and CSS3
- ExpressionEngine
- WordPress
HTML5 and CSS3
The first–HTML5 and CSS3–are the evolution of the specifications and the languages that structure and present Web pages. Modern web browsers, such as Apple Safari, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome provide excellent support for these two specifications. Even Microsoft is making strong movement towards excellent support in its Internet Explorer 9 web browser.
With this level of adoption, it is time for Brettro to adapt these new specifications to its website codebase to use new tags and features. By doing so, clients benefit from web pages that load faster, display more quickly, and potentially earn better rankings in search results.
The Content Managers: ExpressionEngine and WordPress
Big Medium served me and many of my clients well, but after seeing a lack of continued development and commitment from its creator, Brettro began considering other solutions. Those two solutions are ExpressionEngine and WordPress. Both are solid, capable, best-in-class and (most importantly) easy to use content management systems.
And both have:
- An incredibly engaged and committed core of developers
- A dedicated community of designers and developers who use the products
- A staunchly supportive community of developers who work to extend the capabilities of the products
- A solid installed base of websites–small, medium, large, and gigantic–that work incredibly well
For these reasons, Brettro will begin using these products for his clients’ websites and for his own.
What’s Coming
The first website to see the use of these technologies will be brettro.com. Since the beginning of 2010, Brettro has been using WordPress to manage content on one of the business’s websites. And as he grinds through the iterative process of modernizing his codebase to use HTML5 and CSS3, he will consolidate all his Brettro websites under either the ExpressionEngine or WordPress system. Brettro would only deploy code and products to his clients that it would use itself.
Stay tuned. In the coming weeks I plan to keep you updated on both the process and the evolution.
