oh boy, the average wordpress site has like 30 plugins and the top bar is getting cluttered with so many plugin upsells that it fills the whole screen. There's a huge industry of people making wordpress sites who shouldn't.
It's quite frustrating to be asked as a dev to "fix" people's site as my usual response is "shut it off and redo it well".
It's really a shame because by now WordPress itself actually works quite well. Sure, it's fueled by unspeakably ugly spaghetti code. But at least it's unspeakably ugly spaghetti code that works and receives regular automatic updates.
And other than putting up a verification program I don't see what they could do to improve the plugin situation.
I agree. I don't hate wordpress. It seems a bit dated by today's standards and bloated in some aspects but you can definitely make a solid, fast website with it. It's getting a bad reputation for its toxic plugin dev scene and crappy sites built using Elementor.
Elementor
shudders
What an absolute nightmare that was
As someone who found elementor the only thing that was working at the time - any suggestions to do better? I have no coding experience fyi
Coding is pretty much the only way to make a site that is both flexible and fast. If you wanna stay with page builders, I'd recommend something like webflow or framer but going with these closed systems is really not that amazing longterm. You're gonna sink a lot of money into a system that will almost certainly enshittify in the future.
If you're willing to pick up coding, try to make your own theme with something like Advanced Custom Fields in wordpress or switch to something like Kirby CMS which is more flexible out of the box than wordpress and has great docs.
Regular automatic updates on ugly spaghetti code feels like it's just asking for trouble.
Theoretically, someone could untangle the spaghetti. Nobody will, but automatic updates at least opens up the possibility.
There’s a huge industry of people making wordpress sites who shouldn’t.
And this is why I hate the state of the whole hacking scene and that now nation states are also carrying out en masse attacks. Everyone should be free to make a site on Wordpress or whatever. If they can't, that's how we get everyone on like 3 corporate platforms like Facebook.
Funnily enough, I was hearing this from developers in the early 2010s when I was just starting my career (IT adjacent, but not a developer).
Seriously, people have been saying this stuff about WordPress as long as it’s been around, and I’m always surprised that it still exists. This was definitely one of those technologies that sounded bad enough that it could never last. Joke is on me.
Of course I thought the same with JavaScript but was forced to learn it last year
Of course I thought the same with JavaScript but was forced to learn it last year
Use TypeScript. It's still built on a giant steaming pile of shit but at least if you're careful most of your own code can be reasonably correct.
It’s not my choice. I’m only here to help others fix their code, not to actually do the coding. I have to someone know best practices and how to fix common bugs
That's a shame. If you can convince them to use TypeScript that would be for the best, otherwise good luck, you're going to need it. I can't say you couldn't pay me to write JavaScript, but I can say what I would demand to do it is way more than anyone would be willing to pay.
oh boy, the average wordpress site has like 30 plugins and the top bar is getting cluttered with so many plugin upsells that it fills the whole screen. There's a huge industry of people making wordpress sites who shouldn't.
It's quite frustrating to be asked as a dev to "fix" people's site as my usual response is "shut it off and redo it well".
It's really a shame because by now WordPress itself actually works quite well. Sure, it's fueled by unspeakably ugly spaghetti code. But at least it's unspeakably ugly spaghetti code that works and receives regular automatic updates.
And other than putting up a verification program I don't see what they could do to improve the plugin situation.
I agree. I don't hate wordpress. It seems a bit dated by today's standards and bloated in some aspects but you can definitely make a solid, fast website with it. It's getting a bad reputation for its toxic plugin dev scene and crappy sites built using Elementor.
Elementor shudders
What an absolute nightmare that was
As someone who found elementor the only thing that was working at the time - any suggestions to do better? I have no coding experience fyi
Coding is pretty much the only way to make a site that is both flexible and fast. If you wanna stay with page builders, I'd recommend something like webflow or framer but going with these closed systems is really not that amazing longterm. You're gonna sink a lot of money into a system that will almost certainly enshittify in the future.
If you're willing to pick up coding, try to make your own theme with something like Advanced Custom Fields in wordpress or switch to something like Kirby CMS which is more flexible out of the box than wordpress and has great docs.
Regular automatic updates on ugly spaghetti code feels like it's just asking for trouble.
Theoretically, someone could untangle the spaghetti. Nobody will, but automatic updates at least opens up the possibility.
And this is why I hate the state of the whole hacking scene and that now nation states are also carrying out en masse attacks. Everyone should be free to make a site on Wordpress or whatever. If they can't, that's how we get everyone on like 3 corporate platforms like Facebook.
Funnily enough, I was hearing this from developers in the early 2010s when I was just starting my career (IT adjacent, but not a developer).
Seriously, people have been saying this stuff about WordPress as long as it’s been around, and I’m always surprised that it still exists. This was definitely one of those technologies that sounded bad enough that it could never last. Joke is on me.
Of course I thought the same with JavaScript but was forced to learn it last year
Use TypeScript. It's still built on a giant steaming pile of shit but at least if you're careful most of your own code can be reasonably correct.
It’s not my choice. I’m only here to help others fix their code, not to actually do the coding. I have to someone know best practices and how to fix common bugs
That's a shame. If you can convince them to use TypeScript that would be for the best, otherwise good luck, you're going to need it. I can't say you couldn't pay me to write JavaScript, but I can say what I would demand to do it is way more than anyone would be willing to pay.