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Wordpress does not suck. If you know how to work it.

Past period I saw so many rants on WP. My rant is that it is not 100% WP fault. Yes there are seriously structural problems in WP but that does not mean you cannot create top-notch websites.

At my work we create those top-notch WP sites. Blazing fast and manageable. Seriously we got a customer request to make the site slower because it loaded pages to fast (ea; you hardly could see you switched pages).

- We ONLY use a strict set of plugins that we think are stable, useful.
- We have everything in composer (and our own Satis) for plugins.
- We use custom themes & classes. Our code is MVC with Twig.
- In our track history we have 0 hacked websites for the past 2 years.
- Everything runs stable 24/7
- We have OTAP (testing, acceptance & production environments)
- We patch really fast

These are sites going from $15k++ and we know our shit.

Don't hate on WP if you have no clue what you are doing yourself.

That is my rant.

Comments
  • 5
    .... there are many like it, but this one is mine....
  • 5
    I think this could be a fair point.
    But we need some proof.

    Any links to some of your websites?
  • 4
    @coolq

    Our own website: https://www.redkiwi.nl/

    It is good but to be really honest our clients websites are better. We do not putt that much effort in our own (yet).
  • 3
    @wiardvanrij
    Well, it's not too bad!
    It could obviously do with some slick transitions, and simple graphics tweaks. But it definitely showcases that WordPress is capable. I still think that if you have the knowledge to create a website from scratch, that most of the time it is going to be better. But from what you've shown me. WordPress is not a waste of time either.

    My conclusion is:
    If you want to make a quick site: Use WordPress.
    If you want to make a website without understanding the ins and outs of HTML, CSS and JavaScript: Use WordPress.
    But if you know how to make a website from scratch. I don't see why you wouldn't just make it from scratch, rather than use WordPress. You get more control. But I could be wrong. I have little experience with WordPress, so don't take what I'm saying as facts.
  • 3
    Even if WP is dire shit. You still have to live with it because EVERY client knows Wordpress and the backend is just the best.

    We do not pick WP for the awesome development opportunities or whatever. No just because the backend & the name is what clients want. Wordpress is just really mature as CMS.

    Most web-redactors / clients have experience in WP. If they do not have it is also easier to teach them.

    We also develop magento(2) & TYPO3 but these backends are just harder to master / teach.
  • 2
    I write my own plugins in WP. Everytime I look to do something new in WP, I find it's been done before. The documentation is so thorough, such a treat to work with.

    The only thing I don't like is the switch from kebab to camel/underscore/Pascal/whatever-case.
  • 1
    @wiardvanrij Good rant!
    If you ever feel the urge to test a new CMS or you think there is something missing, check out CraftCMS.

    Craft uses Twig in templates and it has multi environment config built it.
    We switched about a year ago from WP to Craft as first choice of CMS for projects.
    The multilanguage part requires Craft Pro, but in your price range, the $300 are no big deal.
    Translating pages is really clever in Craft...

    😉
  • 10
    Juggling knives can be great too, if you know how to do it.
  • 4
    @bahua and knife juggling is freaking awesome to watch
  • 6
    WordPress is a architectural disaster for this date and time, nothing is going to change this. Scaling vertically is a plain rookie/moneymaking sheme, as a software developer this will throw yourself into a hole.

    No matter how good the frontend is build, the design is crafted and optimized the backend code is. You will load a ton of debt on to you.

    Another thing is the Golden Hammer mentality that WP suffers from. You don't need a CMS for static content, you don't need a CMS as base for a shop, you don't build a SaaS ontop of a CMS and WordPress is most definitely not the right tool to build a REST around.

    Services like Contentful are a better iteration to bet your horses on, just to name a example. Your page can be dedicated to the bone, not bound to the language, not bound to the server. You can build the page from the server side or client side and It all depends on your needs.

    But again there are no golden hammers out there, they all come with debt. Use the right tools.
  • 3
    WordPress is legacy software. In the ever changing climate that is web development, WP has no place. Allow me to explain,

    WP was designed for a genetic lamp stack, and designed in a linear fashion. The only appraisal I ever hear for WordPress is over it's robust plugin system, which doesn't stack up to the features of many modern css and JavaScript frameworks.

    Granted you can write over your templates using anything you please, you're still locked to the WP ecosystem.

    Now I'm not saying WordPress is all so awful, especially with the new wp2 REST api. It still not may be a bad choice for bootstrapping or prototyping a simple SPA, but it's just not a viable solution for modern web applications. There's simply too much overhead.

    That all being stated, there are far too many security flaws. Not because it was designed so poorly, but because there's security in obscurity.

    Finally, if you have to depend on WP to build websites or apps, you should reevaluate your skills.
  • 0
    @wiardvanrij The site you linked is quite good compared to what I usually see made with WordPress. I noticed that your company also use Typo3, and I'd argue that Typo3 is much much better for larger sites that needs to scale.
  • 0
    @wiardvanrij but the learning curve of Typo3 is quite steep unfortunately
  • 1
    @aaxa TYPO3 is even worse, TYPO3 chokes on 7 req/s. The only profitable market for it is Germany and there it is only used by web agencys. The learning curve is not steep, the system is just ~76.000 classes bunched together. Just thing about it 76.000 Classes for a CMS is bullshit, and don't get me started on the maintainers of TYPO3. This fuckface named "Namelesscoder" is one of the worst PHP developer that mankind has ever seen.

    Don't do TYPO3, just don't. And same goes for Drupal. Every big CMS is not suited for big sites since they all can not handle many request without scaling vertically.
  • 1
    @aaxa just for reference this is the main maintainer of TYPO3 in action

    https://twitter.com/NamelessCoder/...

    This dude is a waste of meat.
  • 0
    @Hammster Well, then I also learned something new today, thanks :)
    I've only touched Typo3 very briefly and at that point I actually liked it. Good thing I'm not doing CMS development at all anymore xD
  • 3
    @Hammster

    We run TYPO3 for Rotterdam's metro website (ret.nl) . I mean I can't go into details but that is a lot of visitors and concurrent requests ;)

    TYPO3 runs great for big websites. I have no clue on what you base your reply but to be honest you are missing hands on experience.
  • 3
    @wiardvanrij i worked 3 years for a TYPO3 agency, our customers have been Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Peugeot, ErgoDirect and multiple other high profile companies. I know what i'm talking about.

    Now lets talk about ret.nl

    First off, why do you show me a page that has that many mistakes?

    - No Favicon
    - 41 Requests, no bundling, no HTTP/2
    - Unclosed Elements
    - Semantic is not valid
    - The header is fucked up, not even W3C can validate via the url.

    And for the direct example 1,5 second TTFB on the pregenerated HTML page from AMS-IX (Amsterdam Backbone), thats a joke right there. TYPO3 cannot handle all requests and stales the connection.

    If you try to be smart and try to have no such blant errors in your own comment, this is the worst kind of comment it taints valid and provable examples with blant assumptions and biased nonsense. Don't do this its bad, really really bad.
  • 1
    @wiardvanrij also it is 00:36 in the Netherlands right now, i don't think your page traffic right now does justify that TTFB
  • 4
    @Hammster

    so much negativity. Not even sure why I bother answering.

    My comment was made about availability. The amount of users is of that size it would require a lot of the CMS.

    I cant help that you started bitching about things like http/2.

    As for the TTFB, I only see < 200ms TTFB requests. Thanks for notifying me, even tho I see only a stable response log. Sorry you have to be such **** about it.
  • 2
    I can be positive elsewhere and if I see a wrong statement, I will prove that it is wrong.

    If you start delivering over 4 requests in parallel you will need HTTP/2, if you don't know why you should not be talking about this topic anyway.

    And availability in what context? Are you trying to hide behind a buzzword there? A CMS should be tailored/suited for the content, and there is no usecase where content has advantages in TYPO3 over WordPress or Drupal.

    btw: 2 seconds TTFB right now, with a screenshot. Try to access the site with a empty cache.

    https://i.imgur.com/02aUifa.png

    Also Devrant on the desktop does not allow image upload? The heck.
  • 2
    I do not mind feedback (actually love it), I just do not like your hostility.

    It is pretty easy to bash something or someone to the ground. I open up to provide real examples and such. I might expect some decent feedback rather than rants.
  • 3
    @wiardvanrij I don't try to be hostile, I would not bash you or anyone personally, just that you know i'm not really in anger or something :P

    The part that triggers me though is that I see a lot of misconceptions in your comments about TYPO3 and that it spreads to other developers.

    I know I rant and devRant more then i would on other platforms but you have to understand how long I've been dealing with the same mistakes over and over again.

    For the feedback part, if I write something I try to add some prove to it. As you can see in my comment. Ranting or giving feedback without proper explaination would just be a waste of time for everyone ;)
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