WP Engine didn't make ACF, they acquired the company that acquired the OG creator of the plugin. Their contribution to the plugin was a switch to a subscription-based model and they also started reaching out privately to theme authors with ambiguously-worded emails that could be interpreted as them forcing you to stop bundling the plugin with your theme (we had a lifetime license) and directing customers to their sal…
> but I also do think that forking ACF into SCF was a net positive for the community. I think you can make the case that in principle this fork was a good idea. (Though I personally feel ACF is architecturally bad) What I think is unarguable is that the way that fork happened, including the commandeering of the slug to pervert the auto-update mechanism, was both improper and self-destructive, and was pretty indicativ…
I agree, introducing it into the core should have and could have been a constructive move way before given how important the plugin is in the WP ecosystem.
When and how it happened was a hilarious plot twist nobody expected.
Sounds like it's something that must have been painful, all around. Boards really don't like doing things like this, as it signals instability, and shareholders hate instability. That's why so many boards leave clearly non-optimal CEOs in place, so often. This is not something that has been a focus of my attention, except when it was shoved into my face. I'm really too old for that kind of agita. I do run a couple of…
My impression was that the major argument against static site generators is the unfriendly UX for non-technical contributors to the site, and with LLMs that problem is completely solved.
I don't know how it's "completely solved" unless you can point me to an existing, complete solution. Providing a nice backend with a WYSIWYG editor and access control as well as varying level of customization is not a trivial problem for anyone, technical or non technical, and you can easily mess it up.
The entire saga started due to WP Engine "forking" WordPress.
So problem solved? My only criticism is that 1) Mr. Mullenweg should have held tighter controls over the IP and 2) the direction to the community that they are encouraged to use "WP" as a prefix for their business names and products was ultimately a bad one leading to this mess..
If they'd done those two things Wordpress would probably have been far less successful. Which certainly is a way of making WP Engine not even want to do what they did. Heck, they would probably not even exist.
> I don’t think that’s accurate or helpful. There are, to me, abundant signs that he is severely burned out, dysregulated and irrational. (In this statement, in other statements, in his actions that wilfully worsened his own case against WP Engine, in his blog posts etc.) These are mental health issues. I have experienced many of them myself (I am indeed recovering from them now) and do not know what else you could p…
I guess Hacker News went full Reddit, we have mentally unwell (self proclaimed mind you) commentors proclaiming other people mentally ill. The irony.
There's different types of mental illness.
For example, don't you think a person with depression would be better at diagnosing depression in others, than someone who has never experienced it?
> I don’t think that’s accurate or helpful. There are, to me, abundant signs that he is severely burned out, dysregulated and irrational. (In this statement, in other statements, in his actions that wilfully worsened his own case against WP Engine, in his blog posts etc.) These are mental health issues. I have experienced many of them myself (I am indeed recovering from them now) and do not know what else you could p…
I guess Hacker News went full Reddit, we have mentally unwell (self proclaimed mind you) commentors proclaiming other people mentally ill. The irony.
I don’t use or even read Reddit.
But thank you for your thoughtful input or whatever.
> One person speculated that the timing may have something to do with Mullenweg’s annual trip to the Burning Man festival, after which he tends to return “with ideas.” This line is so perfectly on the nose it could be in a McSweeney's article and yet here it is in reality. We are truly on the weirdest timeline.
I just came here to say that I tried setting Wordpress up for someone a couple weeks ago and the entire admin experience felt like someone designed it WHILE AT burning man.
My impression was that the major argument against static site generators is the unfriendly UX for non-technical contributors to the site, and with LLMs that problem is completely solved.
I don't know how it's "completely solved" unless you can point me to an existing, complete solution. Providing a nice backend with a WYSIWYG editor and access control as well as varying level of customization is not a trivial problem for anyone, technical or non technical, and you can easily mess it up.
You only need a WYSIWYG if you're the one doing the actual writing. /s
Let's leave the diagnoses to the doctors please. The guy was public about being under a lot of stress and that's fine and salient to acknowledge. But it's misleading to use medical terminology unless you're actually his doctor and have evaluated him following the protocols of your profession. Which we know you are not -- if you were -- you would be bound by patient confidentiality, and not posting a diagnosis here. S…
I am "evaluating" him as someone who feels he has come unglued in a similarly severe but less public way and recognises a fellow traveller. I'm fully entitled to say this, am I not? It's just my opinion. I am not "medicalising" it — not least because the medical profession does not recognise burnout as mental illness (because it gets it backward and assumes it is an occupational health issue). I am saying he is, to m…
I am only entreating you to be accurate about the terminology used. Due to its historical use by psychologists the term mental illness is generally thought to be synonymous with mental disorder, which is the modern term that refers to a specific illness classified in the DSM-IV which psychiatrists may diagnose. There are only so many of them, and they are defined, and they are diagnosed by name by doctors. To me it is not a matter of sensitivity, and certainly not one of underplaying, but of precision. If you want to diagnose Matt you need to tell us which DSM-IV disorder he is afflicted by and what your authority for the diagnosis is. It sounds like that was not your intent so it would be more clear if you referred to his psychological distress, or sure, "has come unglued"/"lost his mind," or just said he seemed mentally unwell. None of these imply that you're a doctor making a formal diagnosis. They also do not imply that the problem is somehow lessened -- you just aren't mapping it to a definition in the DSM (which ultimately implies some amount of endorsement for treatment, including specific therapies and drugs depending on what you diagnosed). There are unfortunately people out there who will read your comment and take it to mean that a doctor actually diagnosed Matt.