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Ghost — rethinking WordPress

john.onolan.org

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Re: Ghost — rethinking WordPress

#21

Post by calinet6 »

JamesSL wrote: post #13
krogsgard wrote: post #5

These are some beautiful concepts by John. However, I think it's also worth noting that just about everyone that works with WordPress wants to see the interface itself be simplified, even if most of us want to retain its flexibility as a CMS. Here are some related notes from Matt Mullenweg on a "radically simplified WordPress" http://ma.tt/2012/05/simpler/ I'd like to see something like Ghost as a step two of Matt's…

At this stage I think a fork is needed, the work needed to change the core, the people behind WordPress just won't get behind.

Stop calling it a fork—it needs a radically different core. So start over from the ground up! It needs to be a new project, not a fork.

Re: Ghost — rethinking WordPress

#22

Post by ck2 »

STRML wrote: post #18
ck2 wrote: post #7

The whole page is images, and it's a non-existent product, it's just a theory/proposal. Buried in the text is it would be a fork of wordpress . Net is filled with that sentiment, but it never takes off: http://www.google.com/search?q=fork+wordpress&tbo=1&... If you want to replace wordpress you need a modern rewrite, not a fork. The #1 problem of wordpress (among many) is it loads every darn thing on every darn page…

Slow loads are an individual implementation problem as much as it is a Wordpress problem. Wordpress will happily give you more than enough rope to hang yourself with (e.g. Recent Comments), but even slightly savvy engineers should be able to avoid the pitfalls and AJAX expensive queries when needed. I agree that Wordpress should have saner defaults but it is not impossible to build a fast site with it.

I'm not talking about front-end, I mean back-end.

WordPress is over 100 files of code 3mb size, loading on every page, BEFORE plugins.

It's impossible to build an active, non-cached site with it.

I have 100% dynamic php forums running side-by-side with wordpress and they are completely uncached - for WordPress that's impossible at the same load.

Re: Ghost — rethinking WordPress

#25

Post by johnonolan »

calinet6 wrote: post #17
ck2 wrote: post #7

The whole page is images, and it's a non-existent product, it's just a theory/proposal. Buried in the text is it would be a fork of wordpress . Net is filled with that sentiment, but it never takes off: http://www.google.com/search?q=fork+wordpress&tbo=1&... If you want to replace wordpress you need a modern rewrite, not a fork. The #1 problem of wordpress (among many) is it loads every darn thing on every darn page…

This would absolutely be better solved by an entirely new application, written from the ground up. And the whole-page-is-images thing really bothered me too. Some nice designs and interesting ideas for sure, and knowing CSS isn't a prerequisite for being a designer, but damn, I have some doubts about the understanding of the technologies here. Which is probably exactly where the concept of "forking Wordpress" came fr…

I've been committing code to the core WordPress codebase for 3 years, so while I'm not a PHP developer - I have some idea.

Perhaps one thing overlooked in the argument for fork vs new build is that there aren't a huge number of developers with the skills to make this happen who would do it entirely on an Open Source contribution basis as opposed to, say, a startup basis. Appealing to existing WordPress developers, businesses and users, as well as cutting down time to ship first working concept, are (in my mind) some important arguments in favour of a fork.

Re: Ghost — rethinking WordPress

#26

Post by pi18n »

ck2 wrote: post #7

The whole page is images, and it's a non-existent product, it's just a theory/proposal. Buried in the text is it would be a fork of wordpress . Net is filled with that sentiment, but it never takes off: http://www.google.com/search?q=fork+wordpress&tbo=1&... If you want to replace wordpress you need a modern rewrite, not a fork. The #1 problem of wordpress (among many) is it loads every darn thing on every darn page…

Yes, this is could be a much better project if it was written fresh, and preferably in a different language altogether.

Re: Ghost — rethinking WordPress

#27

Post by krogsgard »

JamesSL wrote: post #13
krogsgard wrote: post #5

These are some beautiful concepts by John. However, I think it's also worth noting that just about everyone that works with WordPress wants to see the interface itself be simplified, even if most of us want to retain its flexibility as a CMS. Here are some related notes from Matt Mullenweg on a "radically simplified WordPress" http://ma.tt/2012/05/simpler/ I'd like to see something like Ghost as a step two of Matt's…

At this stage I think a fork is needed, the work needed to change the core, the people behind WordPress just won't get behind.

Unrealistic for software that powers over 20% of all new websites. Also, a bit presumptuous of the core team. I think there is a lot of support for a simplified UI (see Matt's post above). Just because there is a barrier before you get patches submitted doesn't make the core team unwilling. Each decision needs fleshing out before getting put into a new version of WP. If it wasn't that way, the project would be a (total) mess.

Re: Ghost — rethinking WordPress

#29

Post by HyprMusic »

There's a little bit of contradiction in your desires: you say you want to keep "exactly the same theme and plug-in structure" but you also want to limit backwards compatibility. You also say you want to remove bloat and non-core features yet you want to bundle a load of questionable plug-ins. The nicer interface and UI would be welcomed, but I think if you start going too far you'll detract away from Wordpress's core appeal.

Don't forget there are many alternatives to Wordpress that have more features built-in, but Wordpress has succeeded because it's simple, flexible and easy.

Re: Ghost — rethinking WordPress

#30

Post by bergie »

pi18n wrote: post #26
ck2 wrote: post #7

The whole page is images, and it's a non-existent product, it's just a theory/proposal. Buried in the text is it would be a fork of wordpress . Net is filled with that sentiment, but it never takes off: http://www.google.com/search?q=fork+wordpress&tbo=1&... If you want to replace wordpress you need a modern rewrite, not a fork. The #1 problem of wordpress (among many) is it loads every darn thing on every darn page…

Yes, this is could be a much better project if it was written fresh, and preferably in a different language altogether.

PHP has the big benefit of being deployable anywhere. Without that fact it is unlikely that projects like Drupal or WordPress would've taken off as they have.
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