WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ • Hacker News Board

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#21

Post by GeneralMaximus » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 2:01 PM UTC

joekrill wrote: post #15

GeneralMaximus wrote: post #14

I know a lot of people dislike PHP and WordPress, but I haven't found _anything_ that comes close to it in terms of sheer extensibility and plugin ecosystem. There's a plugin for pretty much anything you might want to do with a platform. I even moved my personal Jekyll-powered blog to WordPress a few years ago. My favorite thing about WordPress is that it's a known quantity. There's an easy to follow tutorial teachin…

You're absolutely right. The big issue (for me, at least), is that it's a security nightmare. At least last I used it. It seemed there were security exploits popping up every day. Either from the core codebase, or from some random plugin everyone seemed to be using. I think that was just the nature of how their plugin system works? I'm not sure if anything's changed, but _maintaining_ a WordPress install is not fun a…

That's a fair point. I usually spend some time hardening my WordPress installs, and keep all of them updated. I also disable a few features of the WordPress dashboard, including updating WordPress core and installing themes/plugins. I do these tasks from the command line using WP-CLI.

This setup lets me do 99% of my everyday work using the WordPress UI. For the remaining 1%, I can SSH and use the command line. I've had a scare or two in the past, but in general my websites haven't been large enough to be lucrative targets. Maybe someone who's running larger blogs can chime in on the security issues.

If you want a one click solution, DigitalOcean's WordPress droplet has a lot of security stuff pre-configured for you. They even integrate fail2ban with the WordPress login screen, which is something I never even considered of doing.

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#22

Post by dpau » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 2:10 PM UTC

joekrill wrote: post #15

GeneralMaximus wrote: post #14

I know a lot of people dislike PHP and WordPress, but I haven't found _anything_ that comes close to it in terms of sheer extensibility and plugin ecosystem. There's a plugin for pretty much anything you might want to do with a platform. I even moved my personal Jekyll-powered blog to WordPress a few years ago. My favorite thing about WordPress is that it's a known quantity. There's an easy to follow tutorial teachin…

You're absolutely right. The big issue (for me, at least), is that it's a security nightmare. At least last I used it. It seemed there were security exploits popping up every day. Either from the core codebase, or from some random plugin everyone seemed to be using. I think that was just the nature of how their plugin system works? I'm not sure if anything's changed, but _maintaining_ a WordPress install is not fun a…

I used to help artists with setting up Wordpress portfolio sites. But the constant maintenance required (updating Wordpress & plugins, making sure that all plugins are secure and maintained, and checking after each update to make sure nothing was broken), as well as the rise of platforms like Squarespace, Wix & Weebly, means that I no longer recommend Wordpress for those types of clients. Artists just want to show and sell their work, not deal with whether or not a plugin update is compatible with their version of Woocommerce.

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#23

Post by mrunkel » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 2:17 PM UTC

GeneralMaximus wrote: post #14

I know a lot of people dislike PHP and WordPress, but I haven't found _anything_ that comes close to it in terms of sheer extensibility and plugin ecosystem. There's a plugin for pretty much anything you might want to do with a platform. I even moved my personal Jekyll-powered blog to WordPress a few years ago. My favorite thing about WordPress is that it's a known quantity. There's an easy to follow tutorial teachin…

If you're a PHP dev looking for a good solid CMS framework that (in my opinion helps you out tremendously while also staying out of the way). Check out kirby at https://getkirby.com.

Has a very large plugin eco system and a no database CMS system similar to jekyll/hugo.

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#24

Post by artichokeheart » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 2:18 PM UTC

The big problem with 5.0 is that it's not actually ready and they are shipping because of Wordcamp.

There are 152 open issues that they conveniently allocated 1 to 5.0, 28 to 5.0.1 and the rest to future point releases. https://make.wordpress.org/core/2018/12/06/5-0-gutenberg-sta...

The introduction of Gutenberg is a huge change and yes if you've been following the development, you're probably ready for the major changes but if you weren't following along you're in for a nasty, buggy, surprise.

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#25

Post by personlurking » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 2:18 PM UTC

wtmt wrote: post #20

Maybe I’m in the minority here. Is this the “new editor coming soon” on wordpress.com blogs? If yes, I tried it and was left more confused than before (features like copying an existing post with its categories, tags and content in order to create a new post were missing). So I switched back. I’ve found WordPress becoming more complicated to administer and use over the years. I hope aiming towards simplicity doesn’t…

The move seems aimed more at website building (ex. Wix) than blogging. These should be two different products because the blocks-based idea makes WP.com unusable for blogging, IMO. As a 10-year user, if they remove the option to revert, I'll be taking my blogs elsewhere.

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#26

Post by bovermyer » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 2:21 PM UTC

tvanantwerp wrote: post #3

pmlnr wrote: post #2

I seriously dislike the fact that an exteremely wide-spread open source project - wordpress.org - is driven by a for-profit company, wordpress.com. I guess there's no way around it, given Automattic employs most contributors, but this is not the first time when community requests and doubts are ignored (see emojis, half-baked media library refactoring, etc). On the other hand, I'd welcome if these forced changes woul…

I've been looking hard for an open source replacement for the backend that would let my users edit as simply as with WordPress, but not tie my hands with PHP and an odd API for creating the front end. But so far, I haven't found anything that meets users needs like WordPress does. I wish there were more competition in this space. The closest I've seen--different services that let you create content and provide a Grap…

Check out WriteFreely: https://writefreely.org/

It's written in Go, is federated (ActivityPub), and is easy to set up and run.

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#27

Post by adevx » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 2:23 PM UTC

I know this is not for everyone, but sometimes it makes sense to jump off the CMS bandwagon and build a custom site. First I used Drupal but got tired of rewriting the site on every major release and jumped on WordPress. Then on WordPress I realized I could not create the user experience I was after without committing massive amounts of time and resources in custom plugins/themes. Leaving me too dependent on a moving target that might take a direction I don't agree with. It looks like there is a plugin for everything, but having them all play nice together is difficult. The more plugins the bigger the security risk, and the greater the risk of an update breaking your site.

I rewrote the site in Node.js/Express with Vue.js and server side rendering. The ecosystem is ready with so many libraries to quickly get up and running. Another major benefit is being able to design your own database instead of having everything stored as a post (WordPress).

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#28

Post by bovermyer » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 2:23 PM UTC

pmlnr wrote: post #2

I seriously dislike the fact that an exteremely wide-spread open source project - wordpress.org - is driven by a for-profit company, wordpress.com. I guess there's no way around it, given Automattic employs most contributors, but this is not the first time when community requests and doubts are ignored (see emojis, half-baked media library refactoring, etc). On the other hand, I'd welcome if these forced changes woul…

Driving an open-source project is not the same as controlling it. WordPress has already been forked as ClassicPress and calmPress. If you don't like the direction WordPress is going, you have plenty of options.

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#29

Post by AustinG08 » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 2:23 PM UTC

joekrill wrote: post #15

GeneralMaximus wrote: post #14

I know a lot of people dislike PHP and WordPress, but I haven't found _anything_ that comes close to it in terms of sheer extensibility and plugin ecosystem. There's a plugin for pretty much anything you might want to do with a platform. I even moved my personal Jekyll-powered blog to WordPress a few years ago. My favorite thing about WordPress is that it's a known quantity. There's an easy to follow tutorial teachin…

You're absolutely right. The big issue (for me, at least), is that it's a security nightmare. At least last I used it. It seemed there were security exploits popping up every day. Either from the core codebase, or from some random plugin everyone seemed to be using. I think that was just the nature of how their plugin system works? I'm not sure if anything's changed, but _maintaining_ a WordPress install is not fun a…

My answer to this problem has been the plugin Wordfence. It's primary feature is a WAF whose rules update continuously and intercepts every request. Having worked at several agencies I've seen and inherited many hacked sites. I have never had a site be infected with a clean install using Wordfence. knocks on wood

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#30

Post by folkrav » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 2:25 PM UTC

GeneralMaximus wrote: post #14

I know a lot of people dislike PHP and WordPress, but I haven't found _anything_ that comes close to it in terms of sheer extensibility and plugin ecosystem. There's a plugin for pretty much anything you might want to do with a platform. I even moved my personal Jekyll-powered blog to WordPress a few years ago. My favorite thing about WordPress is that it's a known quantity. There's an easy to follow tutorial teachin…

> I know a lot of people dislike PHP and WordPress, but I haven't found _anything_ that comes close to it in terms of sheer extensibility and plugin ecosystem. There's a plugin for pretty much anything you might want to do with a platform. I even moved my personal Jekyll-powered blog to WordPress a few years ago.

That's exactly what I dislike about WordPress. Yes, it's extensible, yes, it has a shit ton of plugins, but it's also exactly why it's so unsecure, slow and bloated. People want to do with WordPress things that it _should not be doing_. It's a CMS, but its blog engine roots still show to this day.

> My favorite thing about WordPress is that it's a known quantity. There's an easy to follow tutorial teaching you pretty much anything you might want to do with the software. PHP isn't the prettiest language, and WordPress itself feels a bit creaky at times. But it's a practical tool. It does the job, and does it very well.

It's a very decent blog or simple presentational site engine, but as soon as you stray too far from its base functionality, you end up stuck with shit plugins that break every couple of updates. Their biggest multi-lingual plugin (WPML) slows down every request by a full second just by turning on the plugin. Yeah, you can optimize some settings and gain some of it back, but almost nobody does. Access to tutorials is nice, but the vast majority of them are actually garbage and filled with bad practices.

> Since I'm a JavaScript developer, I was optimistic about Ghost becoming a viable alternative to WordPress. Sadly, Ghost's plugin API still doesn't seem to be complete. Without that, it can't replace WordPress for anything besides basic blogging. That seems to be the niche the Ghost developers are interested in, though, so I don't think it's coming anytime soon.

The thing is, people want a new WordPress. But a new "CMS that does everything" is bound to have the same issues : being tolerable at most things, but not very good at anything.

Disclaimer : I worked at a web agency for some time where half the sites were WP. People want things done with WordPress because they know the admin panel, then get surprised when their site ends up being a huge bloated hack that holds together with duct tape. Oh, and Jesus Christ does it get hit by bots all the freaking time...