From Vanity E-Mail to Building a Publishing Platform

Buoyed by the experience of writing custom HTML gadgets, the idea to take on a bigger project and develop www.dariuspearce.com into something other than a vanity e-mail address drove me to give it a go.

There is something deeply satisfying about discovering that the internet is not nearly as mysterious as the technology industry would often like people to believe.

IT, much like law, is fundamentally a very simple process hidden behind layers of jargon and technicality designed to make the uninitiated reach deep into their pocket to have someone else take care of it.

Once you realise that, a great many things suddenly stop feeling impossible.

Now admittedly, I am not coming to this as a complete novice.

Quite by coincidence, this very week I happened to bump into my old computer science teacher and we reminisced about the old days. Back then computer science teachers were often mathematics teachers first, because computing itself is fundamentally built upon mathematics and logic.

In 1985 I was learning to program in BBC BASIC on school computers that today possess less computing power than a digital wristwatch.

At university I also spent some time studying physics and microelectronics. Even now, if absolutely required, I could still sit down and design the actual circuitry for something like a countdown timer from scratch — building the logic gates themselves and programming the assembly code to control them.

That background matters because it leaves you with a very different perspective on technology.

Once you have seen computing from the bottom up:

• transistors
• logic gates
• assembly language
• higher-level languages
• operating systems
• web technologies

…you begin to realise that most modern systems are simply layers built on top of earlier layers.

Computer languages themselves are really just abstractions sitting upon other abstractions.

And in many ways the newest computer language is now AI.

You are still instructing the machine what to do, but instead of learning another formal programming syntax, you can increasingly communicate in plain English.

That does not remove the need for logic or understanding — quite the opposite. It simply shifts the interface between human and machine into something more natural.

Starting With WordPress

I use SiteGround as my host, and like many hosting companies they offer automated installation for WordPress. One click, a few configuration options, and suddenly you supposedly have a modern website.

So naturally, that is where I started.

At first glance it all feels rather impressive:

• dashboards
• themes
• plugins
• menus
• visual editors
• marketplaces
• analytics
• SEO tools
• e-commerce integrations

You are given the impression that you are assembling a professional platform with industrial-grade tools.

Then reality sets in.

The Plugin Rabbit Hole

The first problem is that nothing quite works the way you actually want it to.

Need a feature?
There is probably a plugin.

Need that plugin to integrate properly?
You probably need another plugin.

Need to customise it?
That is usually hidden behind a “Pro” subscription.

Need styling access?
Sometimes that costs extra too.

It becomes an ecosystem of endless dependency:

• update one thing
• break another
• install a compatibility layer
• override some CSS
• fight with templates
• repeat endlessly

The website begins to resemble an aircraft held together with duct tape and subscriptions.

The Weight of Modern Web Development

What surprised me most was how heavy everything had become.

All I really wanted was:

• articles
• aggregators
• archives
• clean layouts
• responsive pages
• lightweight navigation

Instead every page seemed determined to load:

• JavaScript frameworks
• tracking scripts
• visual builders
• admin systems
• unnecessary libraries
• database queries for things I did not even use

The modern web often feels less like publishing and more like running an operating system just to display text.

WooCommerce Was the Turning Point

The moment I experimented with WooCommerce was probably the point where the direction of the project truly changed.

What I expected was:
“Here is a shop.”

What I discovered was:
“Here is an entire software ecosystem requiring continual management.”

Again, for many people that may be absolutely appropriate.

But I increasingly found myself asking a simple question:

Why am I trying so hard to avoid writing code?

Especially when every abstraction layer eventually seemed to require coding anyway.

Returning to Simplicity

The breakthrough came from abandoning the idea that a website needed to be assembled from purchased components.

Instead the project shifted toward:

• raw HTML
• shared CSS
• lightweight PHP
• JSON caching
• RSS aggregation
• SQLite databases
• responsive layouts
• direct control

Suddenly everything became easier.

Not because coding is magically simple, but because the system itself became understandable again.

When something breaks in a custom build, you can usually trace the problem directly.

When something breaks inside a modern plugin ecosystem, you often find yourself navigating layers of abstraction built by people you will never meet.

Building Instead of Renting

One of the unexpected pleasures of the custom route is psychological.

The project no longer feels rented.

It feels owned.

Every file exists for a reason.
Every line serves a purpose.
Every layout decision is intentional.

There is no constant anxiety about:

• subscription changes
• plugin abandonment
• licensing limits
• platform lock-in
• feature paywalls

The site simply becomes infrastructure.

The Irony

Ironically, abandoning the “easy” solution made development dramatically faster.

Once the project escaped the gravitational field of plugins and page builders:

• aggregators appeared quickly
• archives became manageable
• layouts became consistent
• pages became lightweight
• experimentation became enjoyable

And perhaps most importantly:
the project became fun again.

The Larger Lesson

The biggest revelation from this entire process is that modern technology often appears far more complicated than it truly is.

That is not because the underlying concepts are incomprehensible.

It is because complexity has become a business model.

Once you strip away the layers of monetisation, abstraction and marketing jargon, much of the web still boils down to:

• files
• text
• styling
• links
• data
• logic

Which is to say:
perfectly understandable systems.

And that realisation is strangely liberating.