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WordPress Is in Trouble

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Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#441

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #436
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like you are wanting to argue on some specifics. I probably won't be able to give you what you are looking for. With me, it had to do with the languages I wrote (C and Perl), that required CGI to publish. CGI did fine, but it's fairly primitive. Just another system text pipe (which, TBH, is pretty much what is going on, under a Webserver). But for most folks, CGI is unapproachable. That's what PHP gives peop…

You misunderstand, it's more that I have a very limited knowledge of web programming : besides dumb HTML+CSS, only a small project using JQuery and (then bleeding edge) async JavaScript on the frontend, Python on the server, and... CGI for the communication between them. So I was literally trying to know more. (And I understand a bit better now, thanks.)

Sorry. I consider CGI to be sort of a “failed experiment of the past,” sort of like Server-Side Includes (shtml). What CGI does, is let anything that can write to a pipe, publish on the Web (you could write a web app with Bash).

I think that anything that will interact with remote browsers, should go through a Webserver. Many utilities actually have their own built-in webservers (not sure that’s always a good thing).

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#442

Post by gamblor956 »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #435
gamblor956 wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If "free code" being resold is the issue, then Matt's eve worse of a freeloader, since most of the code in WordPress was provided for free by people not employed by Matt.

> most of the code in WordPress was provided for free by people not employed by Matt Automattic previously spent ~4k hours a week maintaining wordpress, so I'm not sure what you're on about

Matt's a known liar, and that 4000/hours a week includes a lot of stuff that doesn't involve working on code. (For example, Matt is including time spent censoring the WP forums, and harassing event sponsors in that time.) Given that the bulk of the WordPress team quit last year, I'd be surprised if they're even spending a 100 hours/week as a company right now on anything related to code right now.

But if we're going by hours...the WP Community as a whole probably spent several hundred thousand hours on maintaining or improving WP last week.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#443

Post by micromacrofoot »

gamblor956 wrote: post #442
micromacrofoot wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most of the code in WordPress was provided for free by people not employed by Matt Automattic previously spent ~4k hours a week maintaining wordpress, so I'm not sure what you're on about

Matt's a known liar, and that 4000/hours a week includes a lot of stuff that doesn't involve working on code. (For example, Matt is including time spent censoring the WP forums, and harassing event sponsors in that time.) Given that the bulk of the WordPress team quit last year, I'd be surprised if they're even spending a 100 hours/week as a company right now on anything related to code right now. But if we're going…

> I'd be surprised if they're even spending a 100 hours/week as a company right now.

Even if half the staff quit (they didn't) they'd still have hundreds of employees...

You seriously don't think they had 4 people working on Wordpress full-time?

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#444

Post by elendee »

wwarner wrote: post #337

I’m not a WP user, and I don’t want to ruffle feathers, but I can read and I think WP .com might not be getting the credit it deserves for contributing 4000+ hrs/year to WP development. Some of the contributors to WP are the very best open source developers out there; they look at kernel performance, image encoding corner cases and php, and land fixes. Not sure if Mullenweg is communicating that as clearly as he coul…

yep I think it's nuts. I have a plugin in the WP directory, and when I first uploaded it kind of blew my mind the service they provide for free. An SVN repo that gives you instant visibility to tens of millions of site owners. Imho Matt has set expectations too high over the decades and now everyone thinks Wordpress grows on trees.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#445

Post by prepend »

philistine wrote: post #434
prepend wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand all this. I didn’t say that static sites are easy to hack or valuable, I responded to GP’s claim “They cannot be hacked” I think static sites are a good technique that has vastly improved security over dynamic sites, but thinking that using them makes you invincible is faulty.

If it makes you as vulnerable as S3, that's as close to invincible as you're going to get.

Depends on where you host.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#446

Post by troad »

whimsicalism wrote: post #429
blacksmith_tb wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the distinction is generally about not creating anything that's broadly useful, putting up a tollbooth but then not using any of the collected toll to improve the road, say. [1] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking#Examples

the reason the rent seeking concept isn’t popular in contemporary classical economics (beyond the partisan association) is that it is pretty ill-defined. but i think you would be hard pressed to find a scenario where Automattic is the rent-seeker and WP engine is not, given that Automattic both contributed to WP and is actively using their revenue to improve WP, whereas WP engine… isn’t.

Didn't WPE release some of the most popular WP plugins of all time? Advanced Form Fields etc? How is that not contributing to the ecosystem?

I'm not sure it's logically consistent to attack the phrase "rent seeeking" as unclear, then apply it anyway (?!) but muddle the word "contributing" in turn, to reach pre-desired conclusions about which party is at fault. You'll have to clarify for me what branch of neo-classical economics is concerned with assigning fault. Seems entirely removed from economics for me.

More broadly, we're not discussing any of this in the context of "contemporary classical economics" (ie right of centre economics), so I have no idea why you think we'd agree on using those definitions, or why those definitions have pride of place over any others.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#447

Post by grogenaut »

whycome wrote: post #370
debesyla wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but shared hosting providers (like hostinger) offers basically the same, but for cheaper and no pricing per website, even on cheaper plans you can fit five or more sites in. Of course, it doesn't matter in the end - as long as users have ability to choose a hosting there will be cheaper and "better" options. Shopyfing wordpress would be worse...

There’s value to users in using a service that’s the same as the software. Trust is worth it to consumers. It’s why many still prefer to take their cars to the dealer rather than an Indy shop

I've had 3 cars totaled by dealers and none totaled by indy shops. One was actually messed up by them beyond repair. One was messed up and they wanted more to fix it well beyond the replace cost. The final one just wanted well beyond the replace cost, and I got it fixed for much much less at an indy shop.

Just find a good indy shop. there's a great one 2 blocks from my house at a gas station. discusses all repairs with you, good on preventive maintenance, 1/4 the price of a dealer. Will tell you what repairs you actually need to do and what you don't. Also easier to schedule and pick up and drop off. I have to wait at the mega dealer near me like 15-30 minutes at drop off and pick up. At least the toyota one will let you defer your car wash instead of waiting for it longer. At the gas station I drop the car in the lot and drop the keys in a mailbox. For pickup I go in any day till 10 and pay like I'm buying an energy drink, grab the keys and walk out to the lot to grab it.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#448

Post by jasonm23 »

throwpoaster wrote: post #409
Nectar0516 wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At best, "serious" businesses (which I take to mean large, successful ones) pretend to take EQ seriously.

Engaging with reality as directly as possible is important in business. Emotions are a part of reality, usually a signal about social dynamics. At the higher levels of serious companies — by which I mean ones trying to win in the market, regardless of size - managers and executives regularly receive training about this. I can’t say more because this is my alt, but: “executives are childish”, “executives are psychopat…

> If anything executives should be straightforward and simple.

Except they almost NEVER are, in fact, the most common trait shown by executives is dishonesty.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#449

Post by gamblor956 »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #443
gamblor956 wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matt's a known liar, and that 4000/hours a week includes a lot of stuff that doesn't involve working on code. (For example, Matt is including time spent censoring the WP forums, and harassing event sponsors in that time.) Given that the bulk of the WordPress team quit last year, I'd be surprised if they're even spending a 100 hours/week as a company right now on anything related to code right now. But if we're going…

> I'd be surprised if they're even spending a 100 hours/week as a company right now. Even if half the staff quit (they didn't) they'd still have hundreds of employees... You seriously don't think they had 4 people working on Wordpress full-time?

The staff that quit was the staff that worked on WP. Almost none of the remaining employees worked on it, so yeah I would not be surprised if only 4 people are working on it now and that's the real cause of Matt pulling back on their WP work.
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