
How WordPress Ate the Internet in 2016 and the World in 2017 - tim333
http://www.forbes.com/sites/montymunford/2016/12/22/how-wordpress-ate-the-internet-in-2016-and-the-world-in-2017/#2b69d1934b24
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dfcarpenter
Having built Wordpress CMS systems in a variety of scenarios I find it an
incredibly frustrating piece of technology. For common framework expectations
/ patterns in 2016 it feels at least 5-10 years behind. It's difficult to
migrate, have multiple environments, deploy, and so much more. In almost every
respect I find alternatives such as Craft CMS (php/yii) or Wagtail
(Python/Django) vastly superior and much easier to customize. The only reason
I find it continues its momentum is that it has word of mouth for managers,
mindshare with editors / content managers who know the admin ui well and
expect more of the same, and it has a very large plugin/theme ecosystem for
people who want to get started very quickly. The problem, especially with some
of these themes is that they are almost impossible to extend and maintain and
they are very bloated. I find that lately I either choose a flat file CMS for
a client (Kirby, Grav) or if its a very simple site I use either Squarespace
or Webflow and for other cases I choose Craft CMS, Wagtail or others which
need a database backend.

~~~
theSpaceOctopus
> It's difficult to migrate, have multiple environments, deploy, and so much
> more.

Sorry, that's kind of silly. WordPress can be incredibly frustrating, for
sure, but there's a multitude of migration, deployment, and local development
options.

We use Roots tools exclusively -

[https://roots.io/](https://roots.io/)

~~~
smpetrey
Agreed. I started using Roots in 2015 and never looked back.

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simonw
I helped a local non-profit launch a WordPress site recently, having not kept
up to date on WordPress for about a decade.

If you ignore the security implications, the plugin mechanism is astonishingly
productive - I needed some 301 redirects, so I searched the plugin dashboard
for "redirect", clicked "install" and instantly had a new control panel for
setting custom redirects.

The variety and quality of available themes is even more impressive. I'm
beginning to understand why the overall ecosystem is such a powerhouse,
especially as a tool to enable technical-but-not-software-engineer people to
build and deploy their own complex sites.

~~~
diziet
To play the devil's advocate, how fundamentally different is it from searching
for a gem that allows some function and copy-pasting some example other than
that a non-software engineer can do it?

I know, it caters to different kind users, and libraries are typically meant
for code consumption (and show the source code up-front and encourage peer
contribution), but there is a similar vector here.

~~~
simonw
It was a one-click install - I clicked a button in the Wordpress admin panel
and I could start using the functionality. No text editor, no SSHing anywhere,
everything happened in my browser. Definitely fundamentally different from
copy and pasting code or installing a gem.

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ebaiwba
I love WordPress. The security of the core software and its ecosystem of
plugins is so horrible that's it's guaranteed a steady source of income for me
for years from dozens of clients.

There are lots of small businesses that are dedicated to creating WordPress
sites for their clients. They just download a theme (sometimes pirated) and
add info relevant to the client, then charge them for the work (once), for
every modification and for the hosting every year.

Make yourself a friend of the owner of that business and every time one of
their client's sites gets hacked, that's going to be the easiest buck you'll
ever make--download the entire FTP tree and hunt for the obvious.

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Disruptive_Dave
The opening paragraph is just an unadulterated train wreck. Forbes continues
its path down being nothing more than a mouthpiece for PR folks.

"WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world and is used by nearly 75
million websites. According to WordPress, more than 409 million people view
more than 23.6 billion pages each month and users produce 69.5 million new
posts and 46.8 million new comments every month. It also powers more than 25%
of the world's websites."

~~~
cocktailpeanuts
I hate Forbes as well, but what's wrong with this expression? Care to explain?

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theSpaceOctopus
If I remember correctly being part of the Forbes "contributor network" is a
small step up (or a few steps down) from saying "Hey, I have my own blog".

"According to WordPress..." what does that even mean? According to the
foundation? Automattic?

I'm surprised this article is even posted here, my guess is the author posted
it himself.

~~~
tim333
I think "According to WordPress..." means as posted on the wordpress.com site:
[https://wordpress.com/activity/](https://wordpress.com/activity/)

I posted it and am not the author. WordPress is interesting from the business
point of view even if the tech is a bit ropey.

Author this bloke:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug8un9XCo-g&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug8un9XCo-g&feature=youtu.be&t=5m52s)

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pjc50
It's reached the "nobody got fired for buying IBM" stage; Wordpress has
sufficiently high name recognition and base of users that it's the default
choice. In fact, it saves a lot of research and frustration. Don't worry about
what your needs are, just install wordpress.

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mooreds
A bit fluffy. I think that WordPress will continue to see strong adoption and
the rest API will definitely help things, but I don't see it taking over the
world.

~~~
20161112
Good job by Automattic's PR hacks on pushing the CMS ("not just blogging")
angle.

~~~
theSpaceOctopus
It's definitely not something from Automattic, smart people work there.

~~~
20161112
No, of course not. Some guy at Forbes just decided to wake up one morning and
extol the virtues of WordPress.

~~~
theSpaceOctopus
> No, of course not. Some guy at Forbes just decided to wake up one morning
> and extol the virtues of WordPress.

In spite of your sarcasm you pretty much nailed it, except the guy doesn't
work for Forbes. He's part of the contributor network, which is essentially a
few thousand bloggers that get paid based on how much traffic they generate
for the site.

Do your homework next time.

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rdiddly
PR or not, good writing should lead the reader along smoothly and not make you
go "what the hell did he just say?"

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fiatjaf
Oh, dear. So many CPU cycles wasted.

