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The dire state of WordPress

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Re: The dire state of WordPress

#31

Post by pekk »

booruguru wrote: post #18

Here's a suggestion, If we can't get WordPress to change, why not fork it and build a "developer" friendly version while maintaining compatibility with subsequent iterations of WordPress? Frankly, I find the people who run the WP development community to be insufferable (Matt included). If you've ever read their discussions for code changes, it just makes you want to pull your hair out. Their pedantic in fighting riv…

Maintaining complete compatibility with WordPress, including any future changes, while trying to clean up design problems (how is this actually possible without breaking anything?) would be a full-time unpaid job from hell and who would actually thank you for it?

Re: The dire state of WordPress

#32

Post by chc »

EwanToo wrote: post #8
jsdalton wrote: post #7

To paraphrase Churchill, Wordpress is the worst CMS -- except for all the others. I'd love to find an open-source CMS (preferably in Python or Ruby) with clean, secure, elegant code and a well-organized framework that comes with a friendly admin and active, responsive development community like Wordpress, but so far I've got nothing. (If anyone has any suggestions, please do feel free to share them!)

And don't forget the amazing amount of functionality that's available for free using the plugin system. It's a classic software development problem - Wordpress's complexity is both it's strength and weakness, and will probably be it's downfall one day (but not just yet)

On the other hand, most of the free plugins are awful. Many of the paid ones are as well, in fact. Many plugins can bring your site to its knees as soon as five people look at it sideways.

Re: The dire state of WordPress

#33

Post by pknight »

kiba wrote: post #22
corresation wrote: post #16

"I’m not going to list all the things that make WP at odds with best practises, but here are the brass tacks" There is a strange paradox that an infatuation with best practices seldom yields a successful product...because it seldom yields a product at all. And those products that do scratch itches and grow and evolve tend to have widely criticized code bases. Wikipedia, Wordpress, Firefox, mySQL, Linux...there isn't…

And those products that do scratch itches and grow and evolve tend to have widely criticized code bases. Maybe. But wordpress is just plain illogical. I heard people trying to use wordpress as an ecommerce platform. WTF? Wordpress is a blogging platform first and foremost. WIkipedia keeps being an encyclopedia, linux keeps being an OS, mysql keeps being a database, firefox keeps being a browser, and so on. Wordpress?…

If you still think of it as being a mere blogging platform, you haven't been paying attention. Woocommerce, which is just one of dozens of ecommerce solutions running WordPress has over half a million downloads. Clearly people & businesses don't adhere to your logic.

Re: The dire state of WordPress

#34

Post by [deleted] »

booruguru wrote: post #18

Here's a suggestion, If we can't get WordPress to change, why not fork it and build a "developer" friendly version while maintaining compatibility with subsequent iterations of WordPress? Frankly, I find the people who run the WP development community to be insufferable (Matt included). If you've ever read their discussions for code changes, it just makes you want to pull your hair out. Their pedantic in fighting riv…

[deleted]

Re: The dire state of WordPress

#35

Post by MostAwesomeDude »

corresation wrote: post #16

"I’m not going to list all the things that make WP at odds with best practises, but here are the brass tacks" There is a strange paradox that an infatuation with best practices seldom yields a successful product...because it seldom yields a product at all. And those products that do scratch itches and grow and evolve tend to have widely criticized code bases. Wikipedia, Wordpress, Firefox, mySQL, Linux...there isn't…

These things are not all alike.

Fx has had many man-hours put into it, attempting to reduce their technical debt and improve the efficiency of maintenance work. They know what's still wrong in the browser, and they're working on it, but progress is slow. There's a reason that Mozilla's working on Rust, and it's not just for S&G.

MySQL is so bad that when MariaDB happened, several long-standing architectural issues were cleaned up. Maria's got a lot of improvements that were made in response to MySQL's community not making those improvements.

Linux... I don't understand why you put Linux on this list. The only people complaining about Linux architecture are:

* Tanenbaum followers who believe that microkernels will save us all

* Binary driver authors who want Linux to be more amenable to their evil schemes

* C++ weenies who are offended by Linux's refusal to adopt C++ as other kernels have done

* C hackers who don't like the brace style of Linux

All of these groups have axes to grind; they're not approaching things from some position of "this code is not performant enough" or "if only more things were supported."

WP and Wordpress picked the wrong implementation language. It happens. Migrating them off of PHP is non-trivial. We already know all of this. It's not that we think everything is going to fail; it's more that we have seen Wordpress get hacked so many times over the years and we're sick and tired of it.

Edit: Attempt to salvage list formatting.

Re: The dire state of WordPress

#36

Post by Jgrubb »

pekk wrote: post #29
bzudo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to have an open-source, Python based, CMS. Even better, one I could install on a GoDaddy domain, as easy as I can install Wordpress. To me, that is the biggest reason Wordpress is the best, except for all others.

Why do you insist on using GoDaddy? This is a particularly terrible ISP which severely and artificially limits your deployment options... why should your choice of blogging software depend on it?

I might be wrong, but perhaps they mean "any generic commodity hosting company with a one-click installer", for which GoDaddy is the prime example.

Re: The dire state of WordPress

#37

Post by bzudo »

pekk wrote: post #29
bzudo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to have an open-source, Python based, CMS. Even better, one I could install on a GoDaddy domain, as easy as I can install Wordpress. To me, that is the biggest reason Wordpress is the best, except for all others.

Why do you insist on using GoDaddy? This is a particularly terrible ISP which severely and artificially limits your deployment options... why should your choice of blogging software depend on it?

I don't insist on using GoDaddy. My point was, and I probably didn't state it clearly, that the reason Wordpress is so popular, is because it's easily installed. Also, the reason why it's piecemealed together.

I've been learning the webapp2 framework on Google App Engine. I took the Udacity CS course and the web development course. I have a site on GAE, I built using Python. It took me six months from start to finish and lots of trail and error. It was fun for me, but definitely not everyones cup of tea. Most people aren't going to take the time.

Re: The dire state of WordPress

#38

Post by bzudo »

Jgrubb wrote: post #36
pekk wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you insist on using GoDaddy? This is a particularly terrible ISP which severely and artificially limits your deployment options... why should your choice of blogging software depend on it?

I might be wrong, but perhaps they mean "any generic commodity hosting company with a one-click installer", for which GoDaddy is the prime example.

You are correct. I should have stated it better.

Re: The dire state of WordPress

#39

Post by kiba »

pknight wrote: post #33
kiba wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And those products that do scratch itches and grow and evolve tend to have widely criticized code bases. Maybe. But wordpress is just plain illogical. I heard people trying to use wordpress as an ecommerce platform. WTF? Wordpress is a blogging platform first and foremost. WIkipedia keeps being an encyclopedia, linux keeps being an OS, mysql keeps being a database, firefox keeps being a browser, and so on. Wordpress?…

If you still think of it as being a mere blogging platform, you haven't been paying attention. Woocommerce, which is just one of dozens of ecommerce solutions running WordPress has over half a million downloads. Clearly people & businesses don't adhere to your logic.

Clearly people & businesses don't adhere to your logic.

And the entire post is agreeing with me.

Re: The dire state of WordPress

#40

Post by aspratley »

hadem wrote: post #10
jiggy2011 wrote: post #3

I'm yet to inherit a PHP project that does not contain a file called "functions.php" and it always makes my heart sink when I see it. What I don't get is the demand for all kinds of stuff to be built on top of wordpress that doesn't really have much to do with content management or blogging. For example online games, CRM systems, auction sites etc. Seems a bit like asking for a CMS system that has been implemented as…

It makes me wonder if the companies behind that online game and auction site were "sold" Wordpress by a developer/designer as a way they could easily update their website. Perhaps whoever pitched Wordpress as a solution in those cases didn't have the knowledge to build a fully functional website from the ground up without Wordpress. As a fellow PHP developer, I can say I share the heart sinking feeling when I see "fu…

Perhaps they were comfortable with WP, perhaps they didn't want to spend time reinventing the wheel, perhaps they didn't want to have to support a massive body of code.
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