💬 Platform Discussion WordPress - My Opinion

[Tyrsson]

It's garbage. Period.

Yes, I know, it's widely used garbage. Does not change the fact that its GARBAGE.

 

[Malcolm]

It's garbage. Period.

Yes, I know, it's widely used garbage. Does not change the fact that its GARBAGE.

I honestly could not, absolutely not, agree more.

 

[Tyrsson]

Half of their code base could be removed if they would just add enough state to the WP_Post object so it could know if it was a new post or not. Furthermore, what developer in their right mind stores F'in revisions in the same table..... Dudes, join a fricking revision table so you DONT CHANGE THE ID!!!!!!!! I would literally fire everyone that has ever been paid to work on that piece of software.

 

[Reverie]

@Tyrsson I feel like this is you right now lol.

 

[Tracy]

Many a developer gripes about it... but it's so monolithic, it's like trying to change the direction of a brontosaurus if you were the size of a gecko.

It needs to be totally refactored.... but that would involve keeping two code lines active... one in development, but then another keeping the status quo.... and unless they are making tons of money on it, I doubt that they can afford that... especially since they are supported off the backs of donations. And we all know, economy gets tuff, one of the first things that gets cut is donations being made.
It would probably be better working on writing a new blog system from the ground up that can migrate from WordPress.... but then, we are back to that very important aspect... money.
As much as it would pain a certain member here appears to believe.... not everybody likes to donate hours and hours of time for free. Those individuals are fewer and fewer in number. There has to be a financial incentive involved.
To see the actual base problem with WordPress, one only needs to look at its origins.

 

[Al]

As an end user, Wordpress is fantastic. It’s easy to use, easy to style, easy to SEO. Blogs do much better than forums in SERPs.

I don’t doubt it’s a convoluted, bloated mess at the backend, but when you’re responsible for powering 40% of the internet I think you can get away with not being optimised.

My first ever website was a Wordpress blog and it’s still here now: https://sector77.net

 

[Tracy]

I don’t doubt it’s a convoluted, bloated mess at the backend, but when you’re responsible for powering 40% of the internet I think you can get away with not being optimised.

Thisis part of the problem.... and why it will most likely never move forward. People simply accept it "as is" and don't expect more from it, or know about it's issues at all.
If you look at the number of intrusions into sites (and the issues it causes a shared hosting provider) and the vector used to attack, you usually find that older versions of WordPress stand front & center. If you are going to run it, you need to have auto-updates on, for both add-ons AND WordPress.

 

[Cedric]

Thisis part of the problem.... and why it will most likely never move forward. People simply accept it "as is" and don't expect more from it, or know about it's issues at all.
If you look at the number of intrusions into sites (and the issues it causes a shared hosting provider) and the vector used to attack, you usually find that older versions of WordPress stand front & center. If you are going to run it, you need to have auto-updates on, for both add-ons AND WordPress.

While I agree with this, the problem with auto updates is that it often breaks stuff unintentionally. Which is why most have it turned off.

 

[Tracy]

While I agree with this, the problem with auto updates is that it often breaks stuff unintentionally. Which is why most have it turned off.

In 7 years I've yet to have it break anything... but again, I don't use a lot of fancy add-ons. And I'd rather deal with a "broken" site than a hacked on.

 

[Al]

Don’t tell @Tyrsson you’re running auto updates. He shouted at me!

 

[Cedric]

In 7 years I've yet to have it break anything... but again, I don't use a lot of fancy add-ons. And I'd rather deal with a "broken" site than a hacked on.

In my experience, having a lot of plugins make it heavy, difficult to maintain and easily broken. So you're completely right. With ESGR and Free Forum Hosting, we tend to keep plugins to a minimum. But still, you can't do without at least 5 or so plugins to transform WordPress into a website from an ordinary blog. It's my business one that broke down multiple times when having a lot of plugins and auto updates. So I had to scale down plugins and since then never had issues.

 

[Tyrsson]

As an end user, Wordpress is fantastic. It’s easy to use, easy to style, easy to SEO. Blogs do much better than forums in SERPs.

I don’t doubt it’s a convoluted, bloated mess at the backend, but when you’re responsible for powering 40% of the internet I think you can get away with not being optimised.

My first ever website was a Wordpress blog and it’s still here now: https://sector77.net

When you are powering 40% of the internet you have a responsibility to NOT pollute it at the same time.

I have seen this same situation in more projects than I can count. It's free, they gain market share and they just keep pumping out versions after versions. SMF is plagued by many of the same problems but at least its foundation was better built, albeit in a different niche.

Auto updates can be ok, but if you are using more than just one or two addons, you really need to review what the changes are and make sure that your addons have versions that target any related changes before applying the update. If not, in some rare cases it could result in data loss. Not because the data is actually gone, but it's effectively gone if you have to disable the addon until its updated.

Matter of fact. I'm not gonna tell ya. Imma show yall what 1 person can get done when you use the right tools.

Flag this post as the start date, and the bad part is, I got one project to finish and another one to get started good before I can even start on this, but watch what im telling ya. I'll post it when its ready for a look.

 

[Empire]

WordPress is the best you can do without writing a line of code. There are plenty of plugins available to make some pretty complex sites and thousands of templates to get your design started. WordPress runs on 20% of the Web (or so I've heard). However, the internals are pretty poorly written. That all being said, you can accomplish a lot with an out-of-the-box theme. Again, most themes are not coded very well, or the plugins for that matter. If you don't need to look at the code though, who cares? I guess it also depends on how many templates you're talking about and the level of complexity of the build. If you want to change the admin area and get a lot of custom functionality, then get ready to get your hands dirty with some PHP.

 

[Arantor]

and unless they are making tons of money on it, I doubt that they can afford that... especially since they are supported off the backs of donations.

Wordpress.com paid hosting exists, and that includes their WP VIP line which starts at $2k/month (and is touted as government-grade security, I suspect this is what the White House website is using, for example)

Automattic has been a company for a long time, and they were big enough and financially stable enough to buy Tumblr from Yahoo a few years ago.