PHP Development, Web Engineering and Real-World Lessons

Jeffery L. Paris / Developer · Entrepreneur · 25+ Years Experience

PHPOG is my personal PHP developer blog and project home. I write about practical PHP, web engineering, Linux servers, security, SEO and the systems I build, along with technology, life, philosophy, faith and spiritual growth. I have been building for the web for more than 25 years and I still document what works, what breaks and what I learn along the way.

Read the blog

Writing by topic

Code and engineering

Tech Talk
Architecture, production systems, performance, security and lessons from real development work.

Function Library
Notes around reusable PHP functions and practical implementation.

Interactive PHP Academy
Teaching notes and updates from the beginner-focused PHP learning project.

Projects and perspective

Site News
PHPOG, Freehold CMS and project updates.

Reflections
Hard lessons, gratitude and the human side of building for a long time.

Personal Notes
Occasional writing about the road behind the work and what I keep learning from it.

A few articles that explain the place

If you are new to PHPOG, these are useful entry points into how I think about code, the web and building systems that last.

Why I Built PHPOG — the purpose behind the learning library, code and writing.
Stop Chasing Algorithms: A Web Engineer's Guide to SEO — why useful, durable work matters more than chasing every algorithm change.
PHP Is Not Dead: Why PHP + Python Is a Powerful Modern Web Architecture — a practical look at choosing tools by the job they need to do.

Freehold CMS is almost ready for public download

Freehold CMS started with an idea I carried around for years: one system I could trust to build many different kinds of websites without dragging along piles of features the site never needed.

Part of that idea came from an old dream of building a network of family-friendly websites where people could learn, explore, play and spend time online without wondering what kind of garbage they were about to run into. I did not want to maintain a completely different platform for every site. I wanted one solid foundation that I understood inside and out.

In my head it was always simple: one system to build them all.

That became Freehold CMS.

Freehold is a self-hosted modular PHP content management system. The Core stays focused on the things nearly every website needs, then you add the parts your particular site actually uses. A blog can stay a blog. A store can add Store and Payments. A membership site can add accounts and membership tools. The point is not to make every site carry the same stack.

What makes Freehold special to me is not one flashy feature. It is how the pieces work together while still remaining separate. The guided installer walks through the important setup instead of dropping you into an empty control panel and expecting you to figure everything out. Modules declare their dependencies so the system can handle them for you. Related settings stay together in Admin and the whole system is designed to feel like one product instead of a pile of unrelated add-ons.

What it can grow into

Blog and publishing
Page Manager and Navigation
Item Collections
Form Builder
Help Center
User profiles and Membership
Store, Payments and Product Licensing
Search and Search Submission

The Freehold Core will be available as a free download. Official modules, themes and bundles can be added depending on what the site actually needs.

It is self-hosted. Your website is yours. Your database is yours. Your files are yours.

After 25+ years of building, repairing and maintaining websites, Freehold is the closest I have come to the system I wanted all those years ago: something practical, understandable and flexible enough to keep using as the next idea comes along.

Freehold CMS is now in its final preparation for public download from the official Freehold CMS site.

Visit Freehold CMS