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Steven Gliebe All this criticism isn’t a surprise. I think it depends on who you are. Regular users. I was surprised at how little my theme customers complained about Gutenberg. They don’t rave, but they don’t complain. They just go on and new users don’t even know. The only problems I see are when they mistakenly have the Gutenberg plugin installed (definitely some confusion there). Writers. They seem to hate it and I understand. It’s a chunky experience compared to the old Word-like editor. You have to learn shortcuts and develop “power user” skills for a fluid experience. Not realistic, so I wish the Classic block was made more apparent so less people would resort to the Classic Editor plugin. Writers do deserve an easier editing mode. Freelancers and agencies. I think this is where the heavy complaints are. The block editor really does create a load of extra work for professionals responsible for a large number of client websites. It throws a monkey wrench into what was already “done” but at some point it’s helpful to realize that in any business must adapt to stay competitive. As a theme developer I no longer look forward to major WordPress releases. The sacredness of backward compatibility in core has been violated with frequent block editor style and markup changes. Updating multiple themes every few months is inconvenient at best. I would rather WordPress have been rewritten from scratch and a modern ecosystem launched in parallel. The breaking changes will simmer down. There was no easy way to get blocks into WordPress. I’m actually surprise it went as “smooth” as it did, because it truly was rushed out. The transition from widgets to blocks and full site editing will probably be painful too. In the long term I look forward to themes being heavier on HTML and CSS than PHP and as far as plugin development goes, I do like blocks. WordPress will be fine, better even. I only wonder if the man at the top will pursue a total rewrite in ten years because all that junk under the hood can’t stay forever. WordPress development is already quite laughed at. It’s not inconceivable that a new solution steals WordPress’s mantle before then. Sometimes I’m surprised to think that nothing is nipping at the heals of WordPress right now.
Steven Gliebe
All this criticism isn’t a surprise. I think it depends on who you are.
Regular users. I was surprised at how little my theme customers complained about Gutenberg. They don’t rave, but they don’t complain. They just go on and new users don’t even know. The only problems I see are when they mistakenly have the Gutenberg plugin installed (definitely some confusion there).
Writers. They seem to hate it and I understand. It’s a chunky experience compared to the old Word-like editor. You have to learn shortcuts and develop “power user” skills for a fluid experience. Not realistic, so I wish the Classic block was made more apparent so less people would resort to the Classic Editor plugin. Writers do deserve an easier editing mode.
Freelancers and agencies. I think this is where the heavy complaints are. The block editor really does create a load of extra work for professionals responsible for a large number of client websites. It throws a monkey wrench into what was already “done” but at some point it’s helpful to realize that in any business must adapt to stay competitive.
As a theme developer I no longer look forward to major WordPress releases. The sacredness of backward compatibility in core has been violated with frequent block editor style and markup changes. Updating multiple themes every few months is inconvenient at best. I would rather WordPress have been rewritten from scratch and a modern ecosystem launched in parallel.
The breaking changes will simmer down. There was no easy way to get blocks into WordPress. I’m actually surprise it went as “smooth” as it did, because it truly was rushed out. The transition from widgets to blocks and full site editing will probably be painful too. In the long term I look forward to themes being heavier on HTML and CSS than PHP and as far as plugin development goes, I do like blocks.
WordPress will be fine, better even. I only wonder if the man at the top will pursue a total rewrite in ten years because all that junk under the hood can’t stay forever. WordPress development is already quite laughed at. It’s not inconceivable that a new solution steals WordPress’s mantle before then. Sometimes I’m surprised to think that nothing is nipping at the heals of WordPress right now.
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