The Beginning: LearnCF (2001-2010)
I created this site as LearnCF site around 2001 as a place to published various presentations I’d given at various user group meetings and some annual local conferences on database design, ColdFusion web development, and other web related topics. After several years, I mostly stopped giving presentations as our local user groups are neither very large nor active and mostly focused more on design versus web applications. LearnCF languished a bit, but it was not forgotten. In 2009 I began conducting a long series of ColdFusion 8 training sessions for the fellow members of my group, which I wrote using Adobe’s then recently released training courses, adding my own material, reordering the material, and rewriting/expanding several sections.
In 2010, with LearnCF seeing so much new content, I decided it was long past time to get off my duff and give it an overhaul, however like most web application developers, I didn’t have the time nor desire to build a new app for it. So I took a look at some of the most talked about ColdFusion blog type apps, feeling the format would be a good fit for the content. After evaluating Mango Blog, BlogCFC, and BlogCFM, I decided that Mango Blog had the best balance of features, usability, customization options, and speed at the time.
ColdFusion Beyond (2010-2015)
With LearnCF on a new platform and in an easier to update fashion, I decided it was time to give it a new name, ColdFusion Beyond, a new URL, and to expand its scope to better encompass the various areas of web application development I found myself working around or looking at, including ColdFusion (of course), jQuery, website usability/accessibility, dealing with customers and developing as part of a group, the (now dead) Mach-II framework, web development news and conferences, etc. etc. etc.
Then, things changed for me again, in 2013, when we began switching from ColdFusion to PHP at work. For awhile, I just added the posts about PHP and our use of Bootstrap to the blog, but with it being clear I’d be moving completely away from ColdFusion eventually, I decided in 2015 that the site needed a new name once again. As I’d already grown increasingly frustrated with Mango as it was pretty much a long dead project anyway, so no new updates or fixes, I decided this change would hopefully be the last one it would need.
Eclectic Thoughts (2015-Current)
And so, I again changed the platform, this time moving to WordPress, and changed the name to get away from being language or even web development-centric. Eclectic Thoughts was the name that I’d been using for years on my LiveJournal, and at the time I’d hoped to migrate it as well, though I eventually decided to just move stuff I’d usually post publicly there anyway as WordPress is not well equipped to deal with the same user access levels as LJ. Beyond that minor snafu, WordPress has been a significant improvement to the site, resulting in better load time, more features for me, and letting me finally give it a much more modern and mobile friendly design.
As part of the change, I also gave myself the freedom to post about anything I feel like posting, so visitors now see more posts on my hobbies, my goals, and so forth. I’d also hoped the refresh and relaunch would renew my blogging habits, though time-heavy obligations at home and work have thus far kept me posting less than I hoped. Still, I look forward to the future of the site, with what should finally be its permanent name, and hopefully the last platform change needed for a long time to come.