Just wanted to share that my first first-author paper is now online! In the journal Stem Cells and Development, here’s my paper on “Roles of Integrins in Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Growth on Matrigel and Vitronectin.”
In my spare time lately, I’ve been comparing Pivot (the blogging software which runs this site) with WordPress (a different system with a much wider userbase). I ended up writing a few hundred lines of code, digging through arcane implementation hooks, and more– but I’ve learned a lot, and I’m contributing back to the development community.
WordPress, unlike Pivot, stores posts in a database. This means it can access them faster, and also perform all sorts of dynamic changes to them in a more transparent way, which I dig. So the thought of switching over has been on my mind.
However, two things have been stopping me:
(1) I love the current theme and appearance of paradoxdruid.com , and I wasn’t sure WordPress could even look like that
(2) I wanted to look before I lept, and not make a rash decision
To that end, I installed WordPress in a subdirectory on the site (https://old.paradoxdruid.com/wordpress/ to be exact) and started digging into it’s code to see if it could look like Pivot. This necessitated teaching myself PHP, finding and modifying scripts, writing a few new plugins based on the WordPress API, and updating and revising a (thankfully existant) script which copies a Pivot batafile into a WordPress database.
As you can see, the real site and the mock site look and act very similarly. This answered point (1), above, andgave me a fair and equal basis for evaluating (2). After using both, I made some observations which I crossposted to the Pivot forums and the WordPress forums. I’ve now heard back from one of the authors of Pivot, saying that they appeciate my work and are carefully evaluating what I’ve said for future release work. Pretty cool! On the WordPress side, someone likes my theme so much that they requested a copy to use for their own site (which I e-mailed off to them). Yay!
So, my questions are mostly answered. What does this mean? Well, I’m still playing and learning, but it’s possible that this blog will switch to a WordPress backend. Ideally, you won’t even notice. Unless you write a post. Then, you’d see a much cleaner and more powerful interface that’s going on behind the scenes. And you’d have to reset your password. 😉
For posterity’s sake, I’ve attached my “mini-review” here:
My observations?
In WordPess’s Favor
Pivot is winning, though.
In Pivot’s Favor
What I wish Pivot would learn from WordPress
What WordPress could learn from Pivot
I’d love feedback from anyone about what you think. Am I on target with these observations? Am I misreading the capabilities of the various programs?
If anyone is especially curious about my process, I’d be happy to post the templates I used to modify WP, the plugins I modified and wrote, and the derivative of the script at MakeYouGoHmm that I used (I modified it to fix a little error and to insert the wordpress “more” template tag between intro and body of imported Pivot entries).
Enjoy! Any comments?
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Just wanted to share that my first first-author paper is now online! In the journal Stem Cells and Development, here’s my paper on “Roles of Integrins in Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Growth on Matrigel and Vitronectin.”
Just read a fascinating (if lengthy) essay on disruptive technology and the future of scientific publishing. Well worth the read!
Just wanted to share Mint.com’s Visual Guide to Deflation, which is quite explanatory.
Hey all Paradoxdruid readers! I recently started up a blog on stem cells that I’d love you all to take a look at: http://www.allthingsstemcell.com/
I participated in another Barely literate book review podcast, this time on Nicholson Baker’s “The Fermata”. Give it a listen!
Obama has outlined a strategy for America, in great depth. Read all about Change.gov!
Okay, I’ll admit that it’s entirely possible that I am the last person to learn about this website*, but it’s really addictive.ÂÂ
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