I have just switched off the ThoughtCafe website.
For those who have no idea what ThoughtCafe was (or is), the first “proper” website I built was called ThoughtCafe - building it taught me a lot about the way websites should work, and the better way of doing things.
ThoughtCafe was a website for amateur writers to post their writing. In the end it grew into one of the best (certainly technically, it was by far the best) websites for writers that existed on the world wide web. It was visited by over 10,000 visitors a week, and had nearly 3,000 regular members… I think part of the reason it was so successful was that (being a professional software developer) there is no question of “how” you do something - everything was possible, and I made sure everything worked in an easy manner.
The first version was straightforward HTML with an Access database behind it. That progressed to an ASP based website running on commercial webspace, and finally in 2002 ThoughtCafe was re-written to use Linux, PHP, and MySQL - and it flew. Down with Microsoft
It is my experience that the first incarnation of the site (running on Microsoft technology) crashed about twice a week on average. The second incarnation of the site (running on Linux) never crashed in two years - and with much higher stresses placed upon in. Make your own mind up which is the better “mission critical” operating system to use…
Anyway - I guess it’s the end of an era. I no longer have a “wow!” website out there on the internet, although a couple of parties are interested in using the ThoughtCafe source code to start their own project off.
Several people have been taken aback that I have given the ThoughtCafe source code away. From my point of view, what good does it do me in keeping it? Somebody else who is more interested can do something with the site that I no longer want to run. That sounds harsh, but it isn’t meant to be. Giving the source away seems like the right thing to do too - I am a vocal advocate of Open Source, so believe in charging for services rather than the product.
God I’m tired. It’s only 10:30 and I’m dead on my feet (or backside, seeing that I’m sat on the floor with the laptop).
Night…