Well, hello there....

Introducing Unconvential Bits!

One of my goals with this blog is to share ideas and thoughts about programming, technology, and managing tech teams. To kick things off, I started by researching different blogging platforms and CMS (Content Management System) solutions for self-hosting. I installed both Drupal and DotNetNuke on my sites to experiment with them. While these solutions are incredibly robust, I quickly realized that the learning curve demanded more time than I was willing to invest.

That led me to an interesting question: what would it take to implement a simple CMS using tools I’m already familiar with, like C#, Blazor, and SQL Server? With over 25 years of experience building software solutions, the idea wasn’t daunting. So, I decided to evaluate the effort required and compare it to my experience setting up existing CMS solutions. Surprisingly, I realized that building a custom solution would take only a few man-days of work.

So, I went for it.

I started on Sunday, continued working through it Monday afternoon, and—voilà!—here we are with a working solution.  ChatGPT was very helpful in assessing effort and exploring solutions.  Ultimately, its my work.

Now, is it perfect? Absolutely not.

Is it lightweight? Very.

Did I cut corners? A few (okay, maybe more than a few—let’s not talk about error handling).

But the process was enlightening, and there are some valuable engineering lessons from this exercise that I’ll share in future posts.

This experience reminded me why I enjoy software development: the thrill of turning an idea into something functional and tangible, even when it’s not polished. It’s these moments of creativity and problem-solving that make the journey worthwhile.

If you’ve ever wondered whether to build or buy a solution, or if you’re just curious about the thought process behind such a decision, stay tuned. I’ll be diving into these topics (and many others) in this blog.

I hope you find my work here both informative and thought-provoking. If nothing else, I promise to keep things honest, occasionally humorous, and always rooted in practical experience.