This semester, I'm taking a class on web design. The name itself is misleading, as this class is also a humanities ("HASS-H", in MIT parlance) and communication-intensive ("CI-H") class; therefore, the emphasis is more on working together as a team and writing high-quality proposals and reports, and the professor expects that each group have at least one member proficient in web design. Neither myself nor my group members are proficient enough in web design to be able to build a dynamic website from (essentially) scratch, and all of us want to get this project done ASAP. To that end, we found that a student group at MIT really needs a new website, as the current website is a few years old and isn't even complete. To quicken and ease the creation of the site, I initially suggested that we use WordPress, due to its extensibility and its professional-looking sites; plus, one of the members of my group is good enough with programming that learning PHP (a near-requirement for WordPress) wouldn't take too long. However, as I later discovered, downloading and editing the PHP files is cumbersome, and we would have to pay if we wanted to host it on our own domain (!) or edit the CSS pages (!!). Wow. I think it's bad that WordPress isn't more up-front about what exactly will require payments. Naturally, we searched for alternatives. Then, I realized that Blogger would be a great tool to create a website and can be made to look just as professional as WordPress sites.
Blogger makes editing a site's theme as easy as pie; with WordPress, one must know PHP. In Blogger (as far as I know), it is free to change domains; with WordPress, one must pay. The story is similar for CSS. That's why we've settled with Blogger for our site. It's friendly towards newbies and non-technical types (like myself), and it's easier to customize (at least on the surface). Hence, I'm glad I went with Blogger for starting this blog.
Of course, these things weren't on my mind over a year ago; it's just that I had a Google account and was commenting on a few Blogger blogs, so I figured the easiest way to create a blog would be through Blogger. I'm sticking with what I know works for me.
