Getting to the essentials
28/08/2022
The WordPress trap
Having a website is a necessity, as is being able to modify its content without depending on a third party. But when you don’t have the skills of a computer scientist, a CMS (Content Management System) is essential.
So, 8 years ago (already!), numerunique chose WordPress as a CMS for its clients and, as usual before offering a service, started by using it for its own account to explore its workings. Hence the creation of this blog, also useful for numerunique’s communication.
At first, WordPress was great. Then came updates that brought some cosmetic (quickly tiresome) or technical (mostly superfluous) improvements, but also restrictions on “free” features, and then the final straw: automatic updates!
Indeed, automatic updates are, for a computer scientist concerned with server security, the typical example of a Trojan horse.
Numerunique’s blog was therefore installed on a separate server, containing only information intended for publication, whose disclosure or loss would not be consequential. Of course, WordPress’s automatic update mechanism was disabled, and this server was still equipped with all the anti-hacking measures deployed by numerunique.
Everything was fine.
Then another wave of “updates” compromised the situation: those of the server’s operating system versions. It eventually became completely obsolete, still just as secure (contrary to the dogma of mandatory updates for security) but impossible to reinstall, as it was unavailable from all hosters, even at a premium price.
And of course, the version of WordPress used became incompatible with a recent operating system, otherwise it wouldn’t be fun.
The future of numerunique’s blog was then at risk.
The problem
A solution had to be found, with the main constraints being to preserve the SEO of the blog’s pages and their content.
Porting WordPress? That meant hunting for fixes among the 411,700 lines of the 845 .php files for the WordPress version in question. It was as good as rewriting everything, since software development is numerunique’s core business.
The solution
And this brings us to the subject of this article: getting to the essentials.
The hundreds of thousands of lines of WordPress code provide countless features… most of which are useless or superfluous. The worst of these features is the ability to accept comments; only 0.001% are relevant, and the rest are hacking attempts or unwanted communications.
And the essential for moving this blog to another server is, for readers’ use, simply to display the articles’ content. For the author, it’s also necessary to create new ones and modify their content.
And that requires, in the initial version, only 346 lines in 3 .php files, without trying to minimize the code.
The benefits
Economically, this means one less server to pay for, monitor, and protect. In these times, any savings are welcome.
Beyond solving the initial problem, numerunique’s blog is now integrated into a consistent presentation with numerunique’s main website.
And above all, it’s sustainable!
Indeed, numerunique’s developments are made to last, without unnecessary updates. Numerunique’s oldest clients know this well.