Another push to get people off #substack is prompting IT professionals to write posts about how easy it is to set up your own site.

I beg you to stop. You are not helping. People are reading your posts and thinking 'that seems really complicated... I can' t do that'.

Every single post about self-hosting is literally that Simpsons gag about fixing the foundations to your own house "And if you don't have ceramic stuck-o-lath then aluminium stuck-o-lath will work just as well!"

IT is a really interesting profession... No other profession seems to produce people who think that the highly-technical skills for which they are well paid are just common sense.

Even when Gordon Ramsay made TV shows yelling at rubbish cooks his standpoint was generally a) why didn't you learn this at catering college, b) why haven't your previous employers helped you to develop these skills, and c) why did you decide to open a restaurant despite having no training?

@Taskerland "Host your own site"
@Printdevil Occultists do resemble IT professionals with blogs in their ability to produce pages of detailed instructions that are impenetrable to anyone who isn't them.
@Taskerland @Printdevil Teaching board games has made me a better teacher of tech.

"Just repair your own car, and make your own petroleum distillates"

"Home surgery is easy!"

@RogerBW @Taskerland

@Taskerland The art on occult blogs is usually better though.

Luckily I am above reproach as I have no background in any of these things, and the only thing I have detailed knowledge of is that time Doctor Who fought the Spangles.

I do remember working with a really gifted programmer who insisted that all websites should adhere to a template that was easy for him to update/produce/sell. It was based on a triangle. Everyone hated it. (1/2)

@Taskerland It looked like the triangle of Solomon, and he kept trying to flog the design to clients and no one was touching it, and no matter how often he explained to me that the template was really flexible and took minutes to create a designed website based on, my argument "no one is commissioning us" seemed to fail to make progress. Everyone wanted flash sites at the time, and it drove him insane clients picked them. (Because flash)
@Printdevil @Taskerland "It's time to teach you the REAL power. Emacs."

Yes at a client pitch to get work we always did well explaining Emacs to a small group of behavioural trauma specialists.

¬¬

@RogerBW @Taskerland