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Mitch FWIW I’ve been a digital media developer for 25 years but I am new to WP. About 1.5 years ago I helped establish a non-profit organization who’s website requirements include event registration, membership, and online courseware. As I consulted trusted sources for how to build such a website, WP was recommended by several people. We hired a developer to get our initial site established and I have been learning about how WP works as time permits. Over the course of my career I’ve worked with several of the popular operating systems, learned several computer languages and provided a lot of basic computer support of non-technical professionals (my clients). At first I hated WP as it is so much less efficient than straightforward coding. Operationally, it reminds me of the bad ol’ days of the early OS’s. For example the plugin conflicts/troubleshooting/vendor blame/ remind me of the early days of both the Mac and Windows – what a drag to have to deal with that again… But over time I have begun to appreciate what WP has to offer – the extensibility and support community to help meet our diverse needs. It is in some ways an OS unto itself. So with that background, here is my 2 cents. It’s clear that WP has evolved from a popular blogging platform to a powerful, if chaotic CMS. But as an IT professional using WP to manage an organization, the issues of performance and security, as listed in djsteveb’s first post, are basic functions that I need to be aware of and manage. As for newbies or 95% of users (is that estimate based on any studies?), if, during WP install, they are presented with a series of options/checkboxes, with short explanations, they will at least be aware of important issues which are inherent in using WP. These issues exist and will affect the performance and security of their site whether they manage them or not. As with all things software, they can choose to explore these issues further if they are interested. In a world where more IT professionals are using WP as a primary tool, it doesn’t make sense to me to have to maintain a knowledge base about group of plugins in order to manage important core features. From my perspective, you’ve built this basic house, but if I want to be able to close the doors I need the hinge plugin – please assume that I want to close the doors to some of my rooms. I understand that there needs to be a balance to what is placed on an advanced options page, but to me, relying on plugins to manage fundamental options doesn’t seem like a logical architecture. That said, I do appreciate that WP is available. Thanks for the huge effort in creating and maintaining it.
Mitch
FWIW I’ve been a digital media developer for 25 years but I am new to WP. About 1.5 years ago I helped establish a non-profit organization who’s website requirements include event registration, membership, and online courseware. As I consulted trusted sources for how to build such a website, WP was recommended by several people. We hired a developer to get our initial site established and I have been learning about how WP works as time permits.
Over the course of my career I’ve worked with several of the popular operating systems, learned several computer languages and provided a lot of basic computer support of non-technical professionals (my clients).
At first I hated WP as it is so much less efficient than straightforward coding. Operationally, it reminds me of the bad ol’ days of the early OS’s. For example the plugin conflicts/troubleshooting/vendor blame/ remind me of the early days of both the Mac and Windows – what a drag to have to deal with that again… But over time I have begun to appreciate what WP has to offer – the extensibility and support community to help meet our diverse needs. It is in some ways an OS unto itself.
So with that background, here is my 2 cents. It’s clear that WP has evolved from a popular blogging platform to a powerful, if chaotic CMS. But as an IT professional using WP to manage an organization, the issues of performance and security, as listed in djsteveb’s first post, are basic functions that I need to be aware of and manage. As for newbies or 95% of users (is that estimate based on any studies?), if, during WP install, they are presented with a series of options/checkboxes, with short explanations, they will at least be aware of important issues which are inherent in using WP. These issues exist and will affect the performance and security of their site whether they manage them or not. As with all things software, they can choose to explore these issues further if they are interested. In a world where more IT professionals are using WP as a primary tool, it doesn’t make sense to me to have to maintain a knowledge base about group of plugins in order to manage important core features. From my perspective, you’ve built this basic house, but if I want to be able to close the doors I need the hinge plugin – please assume that I want to close the doors to some of my rooms.
I understand that there needs to be a balance to what is placed on an advanced options page, but to me, relying on plugins to manage fundamental options doesn’t seem like a logical architecture.
That said, I do appreciate that WP is available. Thanks for the huge effort in creating and maintaining it.
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