Whats the problem with Wordpress?

Kent Brockman

I have noticed recently that some professional website developers seem to look down on Wordpress.
Anyone know why? (just curious)

desaparecidos

Templates and CMS are for noobs.

/thread.

tricky D

They might be viewing it as a threat to business if more people are doing their own WP sites. However websites are not that simple - nowhere near it. Doing up a site in WP is no guarantee of it being any good. The problem of getting the best user experience for visitors is not something that WP can wave away like it is some magic wand. Knowledge, skills and experience are very much needed for that. With that in mind there are opportunities as well as threats for us professionals when most new technologies like WP arrive.

Cianos

Probably because it requires less work. So, if it requires less work it must be worse, right? Worse for designers and developers in that you can't charge as much. But for the customer it can mean paying less for a better finished product if done correctly.

28064212

It's a question of what's the right tool for the job. Sometimes Wordpress is the right choice. More often, it's used by €50-for-a-website "developers" that don't really know what they're doing, employed by customers who definitely don't know what they're doing. A good developer will use Wordpress when it's suitable. A bad developer will use it because they don't know how to do anything else.

For example, I wonder how many customers had a site installed using a Wordpress version prior to 3.1.3, then never saw their developer again? Because their site may have a significant security flaw in it: http://secunia.com/advisories/44409/. And that's a fairly recent version. If it's a version prior to 2.5, there's a critical vunerability that leaves the site completely open to attack.

A 'proper' developer won't use Wordpress unless there is a support structure in place, or at the very least is sure that the customer can handle updating their Wordpress install

OctavarIan

Kent Brockman wrote: »

I have noticed recently that some professional website developers seem to look down on Wordpress.
Anyone know why? (just curious)

I guess because it's a blogging platform that is being hacked and retrofitted into something resembling a CMS. There's a reliance on throwing plugins at it to do stuff beyond being a blog, then of course you've to constantly maintain updates to the plugins and Wordpress itself to protect against the inevitable security holes that arise from that.

Plus it could get very messy and overcomplicated on larger websites that have many different users and different types of content.

But then I don't do back-end stuff so can't give a proper detailed explanation!

desaparecidos

Cianos wrote: »

Probably because it requires less work. So, if it requires less work it must be worse, right? Worse for designers and developers in that you can't charge as much. But for the customer it can mean paying less for a better finished product if done correctly.

You're wrong there. A lot of "developers" have no problem at all charging huge amounts of money to "install" wordpress.

uck51js9zml2yt

28064212 wrote: »

It's a question of what's the right tool for the job. Sometimes Wordpress is the right choice. More often, it's used by €50-for-a-website "developers" that don't really know what they're doing, employed by customers who definitely don't know what they're do
ing. A good developer will use Wordpress when it's suitable. A bad developer will use it because they don't know how to do anything else.


Your reference to 50 euros developers is a total exaggeration.I know companies who only want developers with extensive wp experience.
Anyone who really knows wp knows there a lot mire to it than just sticking on plugins .
Takes time to talk to the client.develop a persona.get the right layout and change the css and get the seo right,along with all the social media aspect of doing a site .etc etc

28064212

Harrison Early Hardwood wrote: »

Your reference to 50 euros developers is a total exaggeration.I know companies who only want developers with extensive wp experience.
Anyone who really knows wp knows there a lot mire to it than just sticking on plugins .
Takes time to talk to the client.develop a persona.get the right layout and change the css and get the seo right,along with all the social media aspect of doing a site .etc etc

I've highlighted the relevant parts of my post:

28064212 wrote: »

It's a question of what's the right tool for the job. Sometimes Wordpress is the right choice. More often, it's used by €50-for-a-website "developers" that don't really know what they're doing, employed by customers who definitely don't know what they're do
ing. A good developer will use Wordpress when it's suitable. A bad developer will use it because they don't know how to do anything else.

fcrossen

Kent Brockman wrote: »

I have noticed recently that some professional website developers seem to look down on Wordpress.
Anyone know why? (just curious)

As said before - the right tool for the right job...

Cianos wrote: »

Probably because it requires less work. So, if it requires less work it must be worse, right? Worse for designers and developers in that you can't charge as much. But for the customer it can mean paying less for a better finished product if done correctly.

Unless I am developing for a specific purpose (for example something that may get lots of traffic and needs serious optomisation), I'll use Wordpress. I don't want to be reinventing the wheel by writing code that has already been done and peer reviewed for me, customers generally want a CMS and I want my time put to good use for the customer.

If I get paid half and put half the time into the project, then that's OK by me.

28064212 wrote: »

A 'proper' developer won't use Wordpress unless there is a support structure in place, or at the very least is sure that the customer can handle updating their Wordpress install

This is the rub. *Any* CMS requires some degree of back-end code. Any code can contain yet undiscovered vulnerabilities. While Wordpress may make your initial development costs cheaper, you will need to maintain the code.

Re: Developers charging, I am actually getting more work from Wordpress these days from people who have (perhaps ill-advisedly) chosen Wordpress as a CMS platform, thrown all sorts of plugins at it and suddenly required skills to fix something. My most recent job involved fixing about 50 Wordpress sites (hosted off one shared account) that had been hacked by a three year old exploit.

You may want to ask the developers why the look down on Wordpress. If you get a response like

desaparecidos wrote: »

Templates and CMS are for noobs.

then you can quite safely ignore their opinion!

DizzyOC

Jesus! A whole thread on building websites and no one thought to mention design! I've yet to meet a developer that can design. Yiz might be selling a product that functions well - or not - but in nearly all cases (client included) no one gives a toss for what it looks like.

Design has never been understood/appreciated/valued in this country. Yiz are all a gas! And I'm on the rock 'n' roll again. Sigh.

fcrossen

DizzyOC wrote: »

Jesus! A whole thread on building websites and no one thought to mention design! I've yet to meet a developer that can design.

Couldn't agree more,
To be fair though, the question was about developers and not designers!

DizzyOC

fcrossen wrote: »

Couldn't agree more,
To be fair though, the question was about developers and not designers!

Lol! I knew I was crossing threads a bit but I had to vent. Sorry!

*will design for food*