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I’m working with WordPress since 2005 both as a theme designer and plugin developer. The experience is the same today as it was at the beginning. And that expe

I’m working with WordPress since 2005 both as a theme designer and plugin developer. The experience is the same today as it was at the beginning. And that experience is famously broken. Code mess, theme mess, customisation mess, etc. If WordPress powers one third of the internet, and, Automattic is such a success story how they couldn’t create a framework in which designing and developing can give you a little satisfaction? Many times I left WordPress for others like Ruby on Rails, Yii, static site generators, Contentful, etc. but I’m always returning to it. My clients need it. They think it is a standard in CMS and the hosting is stable and affordable. But non-businesses, individuals are abandoning it. The promise is huge: pay a few dollars for hosting, get a pre-installed WordPress, choose a theme from that 5,000 free themes and you are done. The reality is that WordPress theming is broken. None of those 5,000 free themes can satisfy a single need in 100% percent. People realise they need an expert to customize and make it work, and from that moment their project either is migrated somewhere else or just bitterly abandoned. I wonder how many of that ‘30% of total websites are powered by WordPress’ is an abandoned site? TLDR: WordPress lost it’s individual user base; still good for small businesses who can afford customization; awful as experience for designers and developers; WordPress is not at crossroads but in chaos. Gutenberg, the only big change since it’s inception is not well received by designers and developers. If they flock they’ll take away with them the small businesses.

pxtail 8y ago
Your message is full of sentences which are contradiction to each other. You are saying that WP not changed for a long time and yet at the same time you are afraid of upcoming change, and you are power user! - this is the reason why changes are so slow. > The reality is that WordPress theming is broken. None of those 5,000 free themes can satisfy a single need in 100% percent. It's not broken, it's just how everything works in life - unless you are skilled or determined enough yourself you need expert for customizations, it isn't possible to make creator which will satisfy everyone (and yet there are abominations like Visual Composer which try to do it). Can you customize parts of your car engine yourself? >TLDR: WordPress lost it’s individual user base What is used as replacement nowadays? I hope not walled gardens or solutions like medium where your content is held in grip and they just wait to squeeze.

pxtail 8y ago

Your message is full of sentences which are contradiction to each other. You are saying that WP not changed for a long time and yet at the same time you are afraid of upcoming change, and you are power user! - this is the reason why changes are so slow. > The reality is that WordPress theming is broken. None of those 5,000 free themes can satisfy a single need in 100% percent. It's not broken, it's just how everything works in life - unless you are skilled or determined enough yourself you need expert for customizations, it isn't possible to make creator which will satisfy everyone (and yet there are abominations like Visual Composer which try to do it). Can you customize parts of your car engine yourself? >TLDR: WordPress lost it’s individual user base What is used as replacement nowadays? I hope not walled gardens or solutions like medium where your content is held in grip and they just wait to squeeze.