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EmDash – A spiritual successor to WordPress that solves plugin security

blog.cloudflare.com

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Re: EmDash – A spiritual successor to WordPress that solves plugin security

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the main engineer on this. I've also been on the Astro core team for two years, so I do think I understand real open source software and community. As the post implies, I did use a lot of agent time on this, but this isn't a vibe-coded weekend project. I've been working full time on this since mid-January.

will all my custom Wordpress themes and plugins run on EmDash?

For plugins, no.

1- EmDash plugins are written in TypeScript, not PHP

2- EmDash plugins have a specific permissions model, where they need to explicitly request access to certain things.

3- WordPress plugins just invoke things. EmDash plugins have a defined API you use to talk to different capabilitites

4- Those capabilities are totally different, and at a different abstraction, than what WordPress provides.

Beyond the look of the admin interface and publishing flow, I don't see how this is a "Spirtual Successor" to WordPress at all. Its a CMS, designed from scratch, for a serverless world, using CF proprietary capabilities (D1 Databases, R2 for image/media storage, their workers for running things).

Re: EmDash – A spiritual successor to WordPress that solves plugin security

#153

Convince me this isn’t vibeslop. If Cloudflare really have radically changed their software development philosophy lately, this would actually be an interesting project, being based on Astro and coming with some APIs for programmatic management. Them being so happy about the „cost of software development“ and not going very deep into ecosystem, community or project management doesn’t convince me that this is going to…

I'm the main engineer on this. I've also been on the Astro core team for two years, so I do think I understand real open source software and community. As the post implies, I did use a lot of agent time on this, but this isn't a vibe-coded weekend project. I've been working full time on this since mid-January.

I think one of the reasons people think this is slop is because of the name. How does the name EmDash relate to being a wordpress spiritual successor? It's clear the name was chosen as it relates to the use of em dashes in AI generated text, so why would you want to be associated with that? Why not choose a name like Astro Press given your experience on Astro?

Re: EmDash – A spiritual successor to WordPress that solves plugin security

#154

Convince me this isn’t vibeslop. If Cloudflare really have radically changed their software development philosophy lately, this would actually be an interesting project, being based on Astro and coming with some APIs for programmatic management. Them being so happy about the „cost of software development“ and not going very deep into ecosystem, community or project management doesn’t convince me that this is going to…

I'm the main engineer on this. I've also been on the Astro core team for two years, so I do think I understand real open source software and community. As the post implies, I did use a lot of agent time on this, but this isn't a vibe-coded weekend project. I've been working full time on this since mid-January.

Could you say a few things on your plans to develop the community and ecosystem then as requested?

That's the significant part of Wordpress after all, not the mediocre code.

Re: EmDash – A spiritual successor to WordPress that solves plugin security

#155
It looks like I'm in the minority after reading this comments, but I'm quite happy to see this announcement.

A "good" standard, free CMS with theming and plugin support without the issues of Wordpress is _welcome_. (And the issues are many: Licensing, trust, drama, security, and cost).

I'm guessing that a lot of cynicism here is coming from this crowd not being the target market of Wordpress in the first place? What were you recommending to non-technical friends and family who wanted a good, open source, affordable CMS to back their website? Wordpress has all the right _ideas_, but the wrong implementation.

Re: EmDash – A spiritual successor to WordPress that solves plugin security

#156
It's great that they are recreating much of the fundamental software stack using LLMs. But if you're going to 'vibeslop,' at least do it in a language other than JavaScript.

I struggle to understand why anyone would want to generate code in TypeScript - unless what you're building truly can't be done in Go, Rust, or Kotlin; anything but JS.

I’m not sure how much of an improvement it really is to rewrite something from PHP to TypeScript while claiming security benefits.

Re: EmDash – A spiritual successor to WordPress that solves plugin security

#157
I mean it's cool your created a new CMS and all, but beyond the look of the admin interface and publishing flow, I don't see how this is a "Spirtual Successor" to WordPress at all.

Its a CMS, designed from scratch, for a serverless world. It has a stricter, well defined API that plugins are forced to use instead of directly calling/overriding core functionality like in WP. But that benefit comes with a CMS that's built on top of, and seems to prefer, a ton of CF proprietary capabilities (D1 Databases, R2 for image/media storage, their workers for running things).

The web need less consolidation on CF, not more.

Re: EmDash – A spiritual successor to WordPress that solves plugin security

#158

Convince me this isn’t vibeslop. If Cloudflare really have radically changed their software development philosophy lately, this would actually be an interesting project, being based on Astro and coming with some APIs for programmatic management. Them being so happy about the „cost of software development“ and not going very deep into ecosystem, community or project management doesn’t convince me that this is going to…

Coded with AI != slop. AI in the hands of the right person can actually be good. That's gotten _especially_ true in the past few months.

Re: EmDash – A spiritual successor to WordPress that solves plugin security

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the main engineer on this. I've also been on the Astro core team for two years, so I do think I understand real open source software and community. As the post implies, I did use a lot of agent time on this, but this isn't a vibe-coded weekend project. I've been working full time on this since mid-January.

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