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An indirect thing you can learn from this example is that how little code quality matters when it comes to product popularity or revenue. WordPress and its plu

An indirect thing you can learn from this example is that how little code quality matters when it comes to product popularity or revenue. WordPress and its plugins are most often cited as examples of bad code and to top it off it is written in PHP - a programming language hated by a lot of programmers. Yet when it comes down to it, WP powers 33.6% of all websites on the internet. Just think for a second how big that number is! So if the software gets the job done and the end-user can easily understand it, it really doesn't matter if you write it in what language, using what code patterns.

regularjack 7y ago
> to top it off it is written in PHP - a programming language hated by a lot of programmers. You could say that about any language. PHP is loved by many programmers too.
- BoorishBears 7y ago
  Not to the degree that PHP is hated.
  - ezekg 7y ago
    I’d argue PHP is so hated because of WordPress and the terrible code/practices associated with its ecosystem.
    - gremlinsinc 7y ago
      Amen to that, I live/breathe for laravel projects, I contemplate slitting my wrists when working on wordpress.
      - rocketpastsix 7y ago
        Laravel projects can be just as bad of a codebase as WordPress.
        gremlinsinc 7y ago
        yeah, I'm working on one now (picking up where Indian devs left off) ... Code is laravel 5.2, every controller injects session, requests, etc into the constructor, then injects a 'manager' which is basically a loose repository structure, laravel 5.3 > somewhere makes it so using requests/sessions in constructor you generally want to wrap that in middlware... So upgrading is a huge nightmare. This is one reason I'm not a fan of repository pattern, more classes to inject everywhere even when they're not fully needed. When just making a fatter model would suffice. Also lots of bad php practices...everywhere else. Bad devs can work on any code base, but laravel core code is pretty beautiful, and laravel's community encourages better code, if some bad actors write shitty code the rest of us have to clean up that's on them, but woocommerce is owned by Automattic and has bad code, you'd think they'd fix it or something being a large company. There's also tons of great packages out there that are written way more OO and with testing and best practices than there are for wordpress. Laravel is also easier to optimize, and the data structure for wordpress can get out of hand as well. ltdr; Yes, lots of bad laravel code -- but that's on the individual dev, core laravel and lots of laravel packages use php best practices and encourage good coding. Easier to write better code in laravel than it is a wordpress plugin.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - gremlinsinc 7y ago
    It's only hated by those who haven't grokked modern php > 7.0. Thanks to laravel the php ecosystem has grown quite a bit over the past few years. I know many rails devs who prefer laravel/php to rails for what it brings to the table. Sure ruby is prettier syntax, but php isn't as horrible as it used to be. Now if it could catch up on parallel/asynch it'd have a better time. Sure there's sexier languages like elixir and go and rust, but well designed php code is a pleasure to work w/.
- Insanity 7y ago
  I do think PHP holds a larger share of "hate" than most other languages.
  - gremlinsinc 7y ago
    I don't know... Ask me most days and I'll tell you how much I hate javascript and it's horrible ecosystem and incongruity... but I can't live without using it as it's pretty much the only option for what it does.... In my fullstack workflow js is way worse than php. Just to use it properly requires setting up an entire elaborate webpack setup (thank god for laravel mix), then there's a gajillion frameworks to choose from if you go that route, best practices are argued constantly on forums/reddit/hn.... I'd like to build an app on node but I can't ever get past bootstrapping the damn app before I get frustrated at the time it takes just to dive right in.
    - chriswarbo 7y ago
      > Ask me most days and I'll tell you how much I hate javascript... but I can't live without using it as it's pretty much the only option for what it does Very true, unfortunately. > Just to use it properly requires setting up an entire elaborate webpack setup This sounds like a self-imposed problem. I've been writing JS for over a decade and never touched webpack (I think it's some sort of compiler/linker) > there's a gajillion frameworks to choose from if you go that route Emphasis on the word "if". Frameworks are there to make life easier; if they're making your life harder, don't bother. Most things are easy enough in "Vanilla JS", now that IE6 compatibility is less important. > best practices are argued constantly on forums/reddit/hn Arguing over best practices is a sign of a healthy community, which is passionate about quality rather than settling for "it runs". Learning about new ideas can be useful for framing our thinking, even if we don't directly apply those approaches. Those sort of arguments shouldn't have much impact on how we actually Get Things Done though, since we know more about the engineering requirements of our particular project than random people online, and we'll be more productive using known-good methods which we're experienced with. > I'd like to build an app on node but I can't ever get past bootstrapping the damn app before I get frustrated at the time it takes just to dive right in. I've not used Node in years, but again that's a choice; if it makes life harder, dump it and use something easier. Node.js bootstrapping complications aren't really a fault of the JS language; heck, you can use FastCGI if you like (that's how PHP is often run).
- krilly 7y ago
  PHP is regularly found to be the most hated programming language https://fossbytes.com/most-loved-hated-programming-languages-2019/ https://fossbytes.com/most-loved-hated-programming-languages...
- chriswarbo 7y ago
  We usually gain a better understanding of the world through numbers rather than booleans. It's true that programmers hate PHP. It's true that programmers love PHP. It's true that programmers hate other languages. It's true that programmers love other languages. This isn't very useful, as you seem to imply; but only due to the boolean perspective. Numerically, PHP is hated far more than other languages, and loved far less (StackOverflow surveys come to mind, but I'm sure there's a whole lot more data on this)
  - rocketpastsix 7y ago
    The StackOverflow surveys only show you the data from the people who want to answer. It's always going to be skewed one way or another. I use and like PHP, and I rarely do the SO survey because I never see it in time.
sebazzz 7y ago
> An indirect thing you can learn from this example is that how little code quality matters when it comes to product popularity or revenue. An that is the exact reasons why it is hard to address implementing more tests, and addressing technical debt.
Nextgrid 7y ago
Revenue for the company behind Wordpress itself? Maybe. Revenue for the end-user? No way. Wordpress sites are high maintenance due to its enormous attack surface and dubious code quality. I would never even consider it as it will just be a liability I don't want to deal with.
- superasn 7y ago
  I think a very easy way to mitigate that problem is by using something like siteground that mantains and optimizes that for you. I don't have direct experience with then myself but that's what I've heard most successful wp blogs do
  - quickthrower2 7y ago
    I have moved entirely to a JAM stack i.e. static sites with JS to add functionality via apis. I’m happy with this because if my host dies or pisses me off I can very simply move to another host. And my choice is any host, from S3 to classic shared hosting to CDN edge providers to a raspberry pi hanging off my router. It’s a lot cheaper, and cms using tools like Hugo or Jekyll is really a lot better than WP because let’s face it you’ll end up editing the theme pho files in Wordpress. I now use metalsmith for new sites instead of Hugo as it’s more hackable. One thing thars a bit harder is Wordpress is nice for a techie working with a non techie content editor. I’m making do with markdown and github for that but a solution to that problem could be a indie hacker idea.
    - johnsonjo 7y ago
      Ghost [1] seems like a good alternative blog platform for non-techies if you really dislike WordPress. It's a CMS like WordPress but it focuses mainly on blogging unlike WordPress which does e-commerce as well. If anyone here is interested in JAMstack with ghost here's a Gatsby ghost integration which brings CMS like content management to JAMstack [2]. [1]: https://ghost.org https://ghost.org [2]: https://gatsby.ghost.org/about/ https://gatsby.ghost.org/about/

regularjack 7y ago

> to top it off it is written in PHP - a programming language hated by a lot of programmers. You could say that about any language. PHP is loved by many programmers too.

BoorishBears 7y ago
Not to the degree that PHP is hated.
- ezekg 7y ago
  I’d argue PHP is so hated because of WordPress and the terrible code/practices associated with its ecosystem.
  - gremlinsinc 7y ago
    Amen to that, I live/breathe for laravel projects, I contemplate slitting my wrists when working on wordpress.
    - rocketpastsix 7y ago
      Laravel projects can be just as bad of a codebase as WordPress.
      - gremlinsinc 7y ago
        yeah, I'm working on one now (picking up where Indian devs left off) ... Code is laravel 5.2, every controller injects session, requests, etc into the constructor, then injects a 'manager' which is basically a loose repository structure, laravel 5.3 > somewhere makes it so using requests/sessions in constructor you generally want to wrap that in middlware... So upgrading is a huge nightmare. This is one reason I'm not a fan of repository pattern, more classes to inject everywhere even when they're not fully needed. When just making a fatter model would suffice. Also lots of bad php practices...everywhere else. Bad devs can work on any code base, but laravel core code is pretty beautiful, and laravel's community encourages better code, if some bad actors write shitty code the rest of us have to clean up that's on them, but woocommerce is owned by Automattic and has bad code, you'd think they'd fix it or something being a large company. There's also tons of great packages out there that are written way more OO and with testing and best practices than there are for wordpress. Laravel is also easier to optimize, and the data structure for wordpress can get out of hand as well. ltdr; Yes, lots of bad laravel code -- but that's on the individual dev, core laravel and lots of laravel packages use php best practices and encourage good coding. Easier to write better code in laravel than it is a wordpress plugin.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- gremlinsinc 7y ago
  It's only hated by those who haven't grokked modern php > 7.0. Thanks to laravel the php ecosystem has grown quite a bit over the past few years. I know many rails devs who prefer laravel/php to rails for what it brings to the table. Sure ruby is prettier syntax, but php isn't as horrible as it used to be. Now if it could catch up on parallel/asynch it'd have a better time. Sure there's sexier languages like elixir and go and rust, but well designed php code is a pleasure to work w/.
Insanity 7y ago
I do think PHP holds a larger share of "hate" than most other languages.
- gremlinsinc 7y ago
  I don't know... Ask me most days and I'll tell you how much I hate javascript and it's horrible ecosystem and incongruity... but I can't live without using it as it's pretty much the only option for what it does.... In my fullstack workflow js is way worse than php. Just to use it properly requires setting up an entire elaborate webpack setup (thank god for laravel mix), then there's a gajillion frameworks to choose from if you go that route, best practices are argued constantly on forums/reddit/hn.... I'd like to build an app on node but I can't ever get past bootstrapping the damn app before I get frustrated at the time it takes just to dive right in.
  - chriswarbo 7y ago
    > Ask me most days and I'll tell you how much I hate javascript... but I can't live without using it as it's pretty much the only option for what it does Very true, unfortunately. > Just to use it properly requires setting up an entire elaborate webpack setup This sounds like a self-imposed problem. I've been writing JS for over a decade and never touched webpack (I think it's some sort of compiler/linker) > there's a gajillion frameworks to choose from if you go that route Emphasis on the word "if". Frameworks are there to make life easier; if they're making your life harder, don't bother. Most things are easy enough in "Vanilla JS", now that IE6 compatibility is less important. > best practices are argued constantly on forums/reddit/hn Arguing over best practices is a sign of a healthy community, which is passionate about quality rather than settling for "it runs". Learning about new ideas can be useful for framing our thinking, even if we don't directly apply those approaches. Those sort of arguments shouldn't have much impact on how we actually Get Things Done though, since we know more about the engineering requirements of our particular project than random people online, and we'll be more productive using known-good methods which we're experienced with. > I'd like to build an app on node but I can't ever get past bootstrapping the damn app before I get frustrated at the time it takes just to dive right in. I've not used Node in years, but again that's a choice; if it makes life harder, dump it and use something easier. Node.js bootstrapping complications aren't really a fault of the JS language; heck, you can use FastCGI if you like (that's how PHP is often run).
krilly 7y ago
PHP is regularly found to be the most hated programming language https://fossbytes.com/most-loved-hated-programming-languages-2019/ https://fossbytes.com/most-loved-hated-programming-languages...
chriswarbo 7y ago
We usually gain a better understanding of the world through numbers rather than booleans. It's true that programmers hate PHP. It's true that programmers love PHP. It's true that programmers hate other languages. It's true that programmers love other languages. This isn't very useful, as you seem to imply; but only due to the boolean perspective. Numerically, PHP is hated far more than other languages, and loved far less (StackOverflow surveys come to mind, but I'm sure there's a whole lot more data on this)
- rocketpastsix 7y ago
  The StackOverflow surveys only show you the data from the people who want to answer. It's always going to be skewed one way or another. I use and like PHP, and I rarely do the SO survey because I never see it in time.

sebazzz 7y ago

> An indirect thing you can learn from this example is that how little code quality matters when it comes to product popularity or revenue. An that is the exact reasons why it is hard to address implementing more tests, and addressing technical debt.

Nextgrid 7y ago

Revenue for the company behind Wordpress itself? Maybe. Revenue for the end-user? No way. Wordpress sites are high maintenance due to its enormous attack surface and dubious code quality. I would never even consider it as it will just be a liability I don't want to deal with.

superasn 7y ago
I think a very easy way to mitigate that problem is by using something like siteground that mantains and optimizes that for you. I don't have direct experience with then myself but that's what I've heard most successful wp blogs do
- quickthrower2 7y ago
  I have moved entirely to a JAM stack i.e. static sites with JS to add functionality via apis. I’m happy with this because if my host dies or pisses me off I can very simply move to another host. And my choice is any host, from S3 to classic shared hosting to CDN edge providers to a raspberry pi hanging off my router. It’s a lot cheaper, and cms using tools like Hugo or Jekyll is really a lot better than WP because let’s face it you’ll end up editing the theme pho files in Wordpress. I now use metalsmith for new sites instead of Hugo as it’s more hackable. One thing thars a bit harder is Wordpress is nice for a techie working with a non techie content editor. I’m making do with markdown and github for that but a solution to that problem could be a indie hacker idea.
  - johnsonjo 7y ago
    Ghost [1] seems like a good alternative blog platform for non-techies if you really dislike WordPress. It's a CMS like WordPress but it focuses mainly on blogging unlike WordPress which does e-commerce as well. If anyone here is interested in JAMstack with ghost here's a Gatsby ghost integration which brings CMS like content management to JAMstack [2]. [1]: https://ghost.org https://ghost.org [2]: https://gatsby.ghost.org/about/ https://gatsby.ghost.org/about/