Well, it doesn’t, but people can really make it suck.

I’m writing this because I just tackled my first blog – I have many clients that want a deeply-customized blog and I needed to know the methods behind this. So, I grabbed WordPress, got familiar with it then started looking at how to build custom themes from the ground up. You can find my efforts here:

http://www.perkiset.org/politics/

But now, back to WordPress:

IT SUCKS.

Why, you may ask?

Because the WP people used the oldest and least-strong form of

PHP

  programmatic structure there is, and the very thing that Nutballs doesn’t care for: a complete blending of the presentation and actuary code.

Now we all know that

PHP

  came from the days when a page was 98% HTML and you wanted to add a little tag for the counter, or the date or something. The format for that was simple: in the middle of an HTML page, you’d just add a little

PHP

  tag:



This was a clever “add” to the language of the then-newfangled World Wide Web. But it's shit on a biscuit now. There are two essential ways of

programming

  with

PHP

 : HTML with

PHP

  tags interspersed – I’ll call things HTML+

PHP

  for the rest of this post, and

PHP

  outputting HTML chunks – which I’ll call TRWTC from now. (The Right Way To Code).

Consider this snippet:



Notice how they have actually created loops with inserted

PHP

  tags! It’s HORRIBLE! There are 3 fundamental problems with this sort of

programming

  – particularly when you’re building some big and nasty like WordPress:

• HTML looks alright, but your

programming

  language is chunked up and difficult to follow. There is no flow and the language is interspersed with non-actuary code. It’s terribly difficult to follow, particularly if it hasn't been nicely indented as it is here.
• There is no going back: once you’ve output something, it’s streamed to the user. Without getting deeply into output control functions, in the immortal words of Sally, “It’s out there. You can’t take it back once it’s out there.” This is a problem with the

PHP

  mechanism in general if you’re not careful: any text characters outside of the <? ?> tags are output IMMEDIATELY to the surfer. This means that if you have a space or CR/LF in the front or back of a pure-

php

  file, that will go out EVEN BEFORE YOUR CODE, meaning that if you call header() to do something special it wont work, because it’s already out there. The notion of flow control is right out. This is just entirely bad form, because what if, during the course of constructing your page, you decide that the TITLE tag must be different – well, you can.t It’s gone.
• Lastly, there is no simply way to “blend” the two styles of

PHP

 

programming

  (HTML+

PHP

  or TRWTC) – once you’re on the track of HTML+

PHP

  you’re done.

In a system like WordPress, particularly since they’re at version 2.2.3 or something like that now, you’d expect that they’d moved beyond the ancient and antiquated HTML+

PHP

  model, but the truth about coders wins: Ugly coders write ugly code, regardless of language. And the WordPress folks wrote some DAMN ugly code. SMF is the opposite. Completely TRWTC, even though it is pretty unattractive. But the difference could not be more stark.

In WordPress they even do profoundly stupid things like echoing the return value of a function rather than returning it – this means that you are FORCED into the HTML+

PHP

  model even if you want to modify it, because the functions you’re calling are streaming to the surfer RIGHT NOW. And worse, some function assume that the <current

PHP

  tag> is inside of a <ul><li> arrangement and add LI tags around the output and some don’t - the inconsistency and lack of flexibility is just amazingly poor.

So: I’ll be completely rewriting WordPress from the ground up this afternoon  - how I wish I had the time.

In any case, take heed: Friends don’t let friends code HTML+

PHP

 .

HTML+

PHP

  ... please don't take away my editor?!?!

Kind of funny ... I've typically seeded my sites this way with the intention of fleshing them out, but typically only "functional" pages get the TRWTC treatment.  But ... guilty as charged

/me

Wasn't a shot at you at all J, just a thought in general. The WordPress folks should *really* not be doing this... it's a different way of thinking, particularly for someone who came from HTML into

PHP

  rather than a coder that came to the web.

Doesn't take anything from you at all, just a restructuring of the way that you build a site. As SMSd, a good place to see the difference is to download and look at the entire Dynamic Site Example I posted here a bit ago.

/p

I agree! lol
actually, I do think you can intermingle, i just don't think you should. The only time it is appropriate is for a self contained drop-in. Such as the same way you drop in an Adsense block, or any other remotely hosted JS file that handles some completely compartmentalized display object.

i too have been considering the shortcomings of wordpress and have been thinking of writing my own blog solution. In some respects WP is great, all the plugins, and templates. In other respects, it sucks, trying to be everything to everyone. I have considered making a system that is bare bones.
write to draft
publish
users
comments
tags/categories
and an easy as shit template system.

the reason I haven't is because there is WP. It already exists, and frankly does what I want, though with more fat that I would ever want or need. Also, the day is not long enough.

While grumbling about it a while ago, I thought that, rather than rewrite, perhaps an addition would work - here's my thought:

WP does a fine job of managing a user, and the back-office component is good enough. It's the front-end stuff that pisses me off.

So I was thinking about building a WP API that essentially wraps the same code into an object or functional structure so that I could write what and how I wanted to. (Of course, there's another VASTLY more important API in front of that one ) In this way you could have all the benefits but get past the crappy code.

I dunno, I agree - the day is just not long enough.

thank you for saying it.
i was looking at using drupal as a cms and i was impressed until i looked into making a theme. wordpress too.
fishing html+

php

  diarrhea.
in the time it would take me to

learn

  how to theme either one i (mostly) wrote my own blog in

python

 +django.

ffs what the hell do they have against using some kind of templating?

for me TRWTC would be MVCish with the logic completely seperate from the view, using some kind of templating engine.

i was about to disagree with your TRWTC, then i read it before ran my mouth off. almost the same thing.

I totally get it... every frigging keystroke I made working through my blog on WP just made me itch to do it all myself... however, I have clients that want it done in WP so I must

learn

  it.

Worse: the templates I downloaded that were all tricky CSS had MAJOR discrepancies between IE, FF and Safari. Predominantely, if they worked on FF and Saf then they looked nasty on IE and vice versa. So I stepped way back to a table structure and it looks nice no matter what. And the completely bullshit way that WP was written certainly made that an interesting exercise...

Shittah, the more cool and tricky things get the more they are unmanageable.

This has been a very enlightening thread, as I downloaded WP about 6 months ago and just left the printed intro dox rotting on my nightstand.

I guess unconscious decisions may have value as well.

Then again, I'll probably have to

learn

  it at some point, then I can join you blokes at the bar crying in our bloggers' beer ... all because you guys couldn't find enough time in the day.   

I did the same, like 3 times. It was like pulling teeth to finally get my butt into gear on it.



Given what you're currently up to, I think you'd do well simply to understand how to use and set it up for others... there are so many themes out there that you could get a *long* way on "stock" stuff and then begin to

learn

  to tweak as you go. My suggestion:

learn

  WordPress config/setup, SMF config/setup and

php

 Collab config/setup and you'll have a quite healthy rack of new tools for clients. Read, fantastically high-return looking but low-time-investment billable hours... kaCHING!


/p

Great idea.  Maybe I'll dust it off and see if I can get that dog to hunt.  After all,



... me likey-likey the sound of the cache register 

I admit it - I am guilty. I used to write DB/Applications in

Perl

 , and there was really on TRWTC options for integrating the two. When I first came acorss

PHP

 , it "Seemed" to make building out web apps so much easier because of allowing HTML and

PHP

  to be mixed. And yes, for quick DB insertions or passing variables ot my pages for simplistic dynamic page creation I love

PHP

 . Like you clearly pointed out, the challenge comes when people take "uct Tape" methods and try to build a whole system around it. Thats is what the wordpress code looks like, and hence it is ugly.

That has always been the double edged sword for me with scripting languages. I can crank out some down and dirty code to get something done. Pretty soon, thats all you do, and your 50% into taping an application together when the idea strikes you: "Perhaps this needs a better design!"

I REALLY understand the hatred of "refactoring" and starting from scratch... I've done things like that so many times it's just not even funny.

But I've also been one to really benefit from taking the time (and enduring the headache) of stepping back and saying, you know - I'm gonna type the fingerprints off my hands to do this, but it is the right thing to do... and rewrite.

The WordPress folks should take the time to see just how craqppy their codebase is and give it an update. They would *really* dominate then.

Would be a nice idea to mail this thread to the people at WP, would especially love it if sits posted on matt's blog.

Shoot a mail out prof..


I really need to

learn

 

php

 ...