Jocke's Little Home Page

v6⍺

JLHPv5 is dead. Frabster is dead. This is JLHP version 6 alpha. Actually, it's just plain HTML and a placeholder. I freely admit that the last article on JLHPv5 was from 2008 or something like that. Disgraceful. But it kept hanging in there. The system that is. Let me explain.

Frabsterwhatnow?

In the early noughties I worked on a system that I thought would be the best web development framework in the world. Still about 20 years later, I still think that the concept is one of the purest designs I've ever seen, and yes, I'm biased.
No surprise, but there's a lot of things that have happened, many are great improvements, many have made the Web worse, but regardless of better or worse; a lot of the underlying technologies have moved forward and evolved.

The framework used a database abstraction layer, XML to keep content away from presentation, XSL to delivery the user interface, and it was built in PHP when 4.x was still the folding part of a honey bee's leg. The backed database was PostgreSQL, and I believe the Apache web server was still on v1.x.

All of these technologies have had major upgrades, and whilst it would technically be possible to upgrade all of them and the system would still be viable, I have no need for a database driven web site.

At the time of development, the whole web was in flux and new technologies appeared as a constant stream. Tech came, tech went, new fashion arrived, things got obsolete - fast. One of the problems we experienced as a Web Developers was that the customer constantly wanted the the new tech, mostly rightly so, but the old tech was a mess. Content with embedded <FONT>-tags anyone?
This is why the Frabster framework used XML for content and XSL to turn it into HTML, or rather xHTML as was the flavour of the day. It was built for business', so the backend had have a database, and the front end had to have permissions, both for staff and the public. The staff needed different areas where they could update their content, and the public needed permissions so they could log in to their, hopefully, subscribed, content and thus generate revenue.

It never happened

With rose tinted glasses the development proceeded. At the end the project was canned, and eventually I managed to get the code to a state where the code was mature enough to run my own web page. It was the only live instance of the code. There will probably never be another live instance of the code. I'll have to face it.

Where to next?

Over the years, I've left the Web industry further and further behind me. Let's face it; I'm a burn out and I have no interest in keeping up with the fashion and even less; I have no interest in arguing with "the new kids" or even worse; "The Man".
However, I do enjoy a bit of computer tinkering once in a while. In the back of my head I've got this idea of a content publishing system and in the last 6 months or so, I've been playing around with it a bit, and I think it'll work for my needs. My needs are nowhere as elaborate as they were back in the mid 2000s so the new system will be vastly different. If it ever gets done.

Vague aspirations

In a rosy world where time, motivation, and ambition are not limited resources, I would like to develop the aforementioned new system, and use it for a few other projects too. Then build a good visual design, then start adding interesting articles again. If possible, I'd like to resurrect my old articles that I started writing in the late 1990s.
Whether this happens, I don't know. But one can aspire, right?!

For now, you're getting this simple page. No Frabster. No articles. Maybe there's more one day. Maybe not. There's other things to do too.

Two links

My most active presence on the Interwebs at the moment is on YouTube, so head over to the Jocke Selin channel if you want the audio-visual experience instead of just the written word.

I also have an Instagram account; @jockeselin, but I'll freely admit that I don't really get Instagram. I'm probably too old.

Thanks for readin'!

                Jocke

PS; Trivia! "Jocke's Little Home Page" has been live on the Internet since late 1994 in one form or another, barring some technical outages.