Well, I’ve got something like that feeling again right now, as I take the very first steps towards porting this site from Movable Type over to ExpressionEngine. (This is part of my recently stated desire to resolve the general slowness on this site.) It’s a daunting transition — especially for me, someone with more ambition than free time or technical facility.
To my surprise however, given a few short hours, I’ve gotten much further in getting ExpressionEngine to replicate my existing functionality than I thought I could. I literally started with zero knowledge of the software at the beginning of the week, and with less than six hours’ worth of labor, I’ve hobbled together a rough but serviceable, EE-powered re-creation of Subtraction.com.
Status Check
By way of illustration, here is a visual overview of my productivity to date: below, early screen grabs from the working home page and article templates I’ve been tinkering with. Everything in red is static and untouched, essentially. But the black areas are currently powered by ExpressionEngine. (Some similar functionality, like the navigation, work on one template but don’t yet work on the other.) The basic functionality is in place.
I’ve got a long way to go, as you can see. By no stretch of the imagination am I nearly ready to debut this new incarnation to the world. And, it’s worth pointing out that I may yet run aground on technical hurdles I won’t be able to steer past. But for right now, it’s going very smoothly. Compared to what I’m accustomed to, ExpressionEngine is quite elegant. And fast. It’s also a lot of fun. Why didn’t I do this sooner?
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