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> Disabling revisions is a configuration change. This is the simplest possible change you could make, and it’s unacceptable in his eyes. Actually this is wrong
by safety1st 2y ago
> Disabling revisions is a configuration change. This is the simplest possible change you could make, and it’s unacceptable in his eyes.
Actually this is wrong. Yes the constant WP_POST_REVISIONS exists. But WP Engine has disabled this constant. They do in fact "butcher" WordPress in the sense that they remove a feature, you can't turn it back on by yourself, and you need to talk to their support to get a limited version of it re-enabled by them.
Add to that, revisions are a big deal for a certain type of customer. Say, an enterprise scale publisher for example who has built an extensive publishing workflow around WP. (Hacker News consistently underestimates how massive some WordPress installs are; the scale of the world's biggest publishers, many of whom rely on WordPress, blows your nice little startup out of the water.)
So I am aware of a case or two where this actually became a negotiating point in an enterprise contract. The customer was entirely unaware that revisions were just a free thing built into WP, and it influenced the resulting contract and cost. Dirty dirty on WPE's side, really.
BTW this is documented at https://wpengine.com/support/platform-settings/ https://wpengine.com/support/platform-settings/ and you can see on that page that they limit their environment in many other ways. In the abstract this may not be a huge problem, hosts have costs and security and various limitations to think about. In my personal experience there are limitations which are not listed on that page and those are more frustrating.
- dncornholio 2y agoThe revision system is terrible though. Even we limit it for our clients. It doubles or triples the amount of queries your site and admin needs to run. Have some multi language plugin on top and your site will be eating memory and cpu. If WordPress would have made an actual usuable revision system, this wouldnt have been an issue at all
- safety1st 2y agoI think this is where Matt's perspective actually makes sense: "So, you guys built a $400M/yr business on our open source project, and when you had problems with the revision system, instead of contributing improvements, you just turned it off (and maybe converted it into an enterprise upsell some people are paying extra for!)?" Intel, Google, even Microsoft etc. develop improvements to Linux knowing full well that their competitors will also get access to those improvements. For sure it's disappointing that WP Engine contributes almost no time to Core.
- dncornholio 2y ago> instead of contributing improvements Yeah good luck with that. Something so deeply embedded in WordPress Core impossible to improve upon.
- dncornholio 2y agoWPEngine has tons of developers working on the WordPress ecosystem. This contribution argument doesn't work with me. They're contributing plenty of hours into WordPress plugins that their competition also can use.
- johnchristopher 2y agoIs there a list ?
- biccboii 2y agoNo they don't. They contribute 40 hours a week.
- aimazon 2y agoThat's the amount of hours they contribute to the "Five for the Future" program which specifically refers to work on a subset of the WordPress project managed by Automattic. For example, WPEngine own and develop Advanced Custom Fields, a plugin used by hundreds of thousands of WordPress websites. The work they do on that isn't covered in the 40 hours. Likewise, WPEngine run the DE{CODE} conference but that isn't included in the 40 hours either.
- johnchristopher 2y ago> https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/blog/reflecting-on-two-years-at-wp-engine/ https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/blog/reflecting-on-two-... Oh, I remember now. I was wondering why ACF didn't become part of the core.
- johnchristopher 2y ago
- hoofhearted 2y agoAre you able to name of the publishers that you say run massive WP installs? I do know they exist of course, Sony being one. I’m coding up a little something that I feel is more modern and superior compared to WP, and I’d like to learn what their business requirements and use cases are that keep them on WP. Thanks in advance!
- jdiff 2y agoWP's strength is its size and history. WP is entrenched, it's good enough and it's got an enormous talent pool.
- dewey 2y agoI don't want to discourage you...but there's so many WP alternatives out there that are supported by bigger companies, have a big ecosystem around them with agencies and developers for many years. Why would massive WP installs switch to "a little something"?
- hoofhearted 2y agoI just see the opportunity to provide developers and users a better experience using modern tooling, and feels open and simple enough for anyone to download and use without worrying about security vulnerabilities. Something that feels powerful and safe; like WP of 10 to 15 years ago.
- FateOfNations 2y agoDigital First Media/MediaNews Group, one of the largest newspaper publishers in the US, runs its 100+ local newspaper (NY Daily News, Chicago Tribune, Denver Post, etc.) websites on WordPress.
- hoofhearted 2y agoThank you for the info! This is a solid response :)