Posts about Wordpress

From Sarah Perez at TechCrunch: Automattic has a new board after failed attempt to put CEO on leave. (Automattic is the company who controls WordPress​.com, and also basically all of WordPress.)

This is a remarkable story about a failed coup attempt to oust Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg, following up a years-long story I’ve previously written about at my studio. (If you want the long version, Josh Collingsworth has an excellent writeup.) The shortest possible version is that Mullenweg seems to have joined the list of tech CEOs who, despite being well respected, suddenly went insane and started saying and doing the dumbest things.

This whole story is bananas to me. Here’s my favourite quote:

Of note, Mullenweg also replaced Automattic’s legal counsel after his return, a move that raises questions about whether the boardroom fight is tied to the company’s ongoing lawsuit with hosting provider WP Engine over trademark disputes and claims over WP Engine’s lack of contribution to the WordPress open source project. (WP Engine’s legal team had also accused Mullenweg this July of destroying evidence, court filings show.)

Yes, it’s obviously about the company’s ongoing lawsuit with WP Engine. Is there something even more ridiculous it could be about?

I can’t believe almost 50% of the web relies on something this guy is responsible for.

TechCrunch also updated their article after publishing with this hilarious tidbit:

After publication, Mullenweg confirmed the board additions and advisors, and shared the following statement: ​“We are living through times of unprecedented change, possibly a singularity. The next six months will determine the next 20 years of Automattic.”

Matt, we are not living through a singularity. This is crazy talk.

We need to stop giving crazy CEOs so much airtime.

Let’s imagine you want to start blogging, or need to make a small website. Where do you start?

For many years, the default recommendation was WordPress. It was ​“easy to install,” ​“easy to update,” and ​“easy to use” for people who weren’t familiar with CMS technology. But I’m not sure this is true anymore, and I no longer recommend WordPress to clients.

If you’re not a developer, WordPress is not where you should start with your website. You would be better served by Squarespace, Ghost, et al. Squarespace lets you design an entire website with drag and drop features, and Ghost lets you start blogging with beautiful themes and a premium hosted service. There’s no need to install anything with either platform. And if you need to set up an online store, both Squarespace and Shopify will make your life much easier than WordPress and WooCommerce.

I’ve also noticed something else in the past couple years: WordPress is not easy to use. The backend is a monster, and Gutenberg has made it harder for my clients to use — not easier. Almost any other CMS I’ve tried has been easier for my clients to grasp than WordPress.

If you are technically proficient, it’s getting harder and harder to recommend WordPress. Thanks to Gutenberg and the increasing use of Rest APIs and Javascript, along with the old PHP core, developing for WordPress becomes more nightmarish seemingly with every passing week. 

And if you have any opinions about web development at all, WordPress’s attempts to get you to code ​“the WordPress way” will frustrate or anger you, depending on your tolerance levels. 

If you’re a modern PHP developer, you could use Bedrock to build WordPress, but it’s still WordPress. Bedrock doesn’t solve the problems that Gutenberg and the plugin architecture create. (Trust me: I built this blog with Bedrock, and as of January 2020, I plan on getting off WordPress as soon as possible.)

The problem is this: inevitably, nearly every WordPress site eventually becomes a mess of spaghetti code and plugins that make actually using the site impossible.

Developers (or technically-minded people) would be better off with almost any of the myriad CMSes that are available: Ghost, Craft, Kirby, Grav, Statamic, Shopify, and more are all typically easier to develop for than WordPress. (I haven’t even mentioned static generators.) The options are limitless.

All of this puts WordPress between a rock and a hard place. If developers and regular people should avoid it, who is it for?

I no longer have an answer.