Chapter 26
Website Development
Can you build a killer website for free?
Yes, you can. These days, there are countless options that allow you to build your own website. And doing it yourself doesn't mean you have to settle for some amateur-looking site either. Let's start with the heavyweights. There are a variety of platforms that are referred to as “open source,” meaning they were developed under the GNU (or general public license) and they are entirely free to use. Although open source had its beginnings back in the ‘60s, the term became more widely used after Netscape released its source code in 1998. Today, open source refers to software developed by and for the public. Anyone can contribute to it and anyone can use it. No charge.
These open source website platforms are often referred to as “Web application frameworks” or “content management systems.” They allow you to build impressive websites through a back-end administrative interface (also called a dashboard or control panel). Although these open source platforms all vary slightly, most of their interfaces include buttons like “create a page” or “insert an image” or “add a link,” allowing you to build your website from the ground up, one page at a time. There are three primary platforms in this area: Joomla, Drupal, and WordPress. Joomla is the most powerful but also the most complicated. WordPress is less powerful but incorporates blog functionality and is probably (statistics are hard to find) the most commonly used. ...
