WordPress sucks, WordPress sucks not. Which one is it?

Mark from 45n5.com has posted a short and pointed video about WordPress, and how it sucks. The video is aptly titled “WordPress sucks,” and here it is for your viewing pleasure:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0BTz-hTvOg[/youtube]

David Peralty has responded with his own video on BloggingPro arguing that WordPress doesn’t suck. And here it is:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fyuvzWtTgI[/youtube]

So does it or doesn’t it? Suck, I mean.

Let’s do a comparison between the two videos and their messages to try to figure this one out:

Mark	David
Short, to the point	Starts off strong, but goes on way too long
Sings really badly	Needs a haircut (or so he says – I don’t think so)
Entertaining with “interesting” effects	Is boring
Makes some good points I can’t argue with: WP gets hacked a lot, has too many security updates, and too much spam (“WordPress has more spam than a fat kid eats spam…and that’s a lot!”)	Basically says these problems are the fault of the users. But who can blame users who don’t update all the time when updates are being released every week? And spam is not the users’ faults.

In my opinion, Mark wins this round – he gets his points across in seconds flat, so he keeps our attention, plus his arguments are legitimate. But I still really like WordPress, despite its faults, because it does have a lot of benefits. The biggest benefit, I think, is that it puts flexible publishing in the hands of the people. You don’t have to be a programming guru to put together a stylish, user-friendly, optimized, and feature-filled site. And of course, the price is right.

What do you think?

WTL

I told David he should sing, but I’m just as happy that he didn’t. His statements about the issues with WordPress users are I believe, legitimate, however.Unfortunately, software will almost always need to be patched – until humans are removed from the coding cycle, but then we’ll have another issue to deal with; fighting for our lives so the computers don’t wipe us from the surface of the planet. Patching is something people just have to get used to doing, like taking your car in for maintenance, or paying your bills. I suppose if one hates doing that stuff so much you should sign up with a web host that takes care of that stuff for you – I’m certain that they exist.Considering WP is free and open to contributions, rather than complain, people should be active in trying to fix things.And, I suppose, if it sucks so much, fine! Pack up and move to something else, or better yet, write your own!
Miriam Schwab

WTL – you are right about the fact that WP is free so we shouldn’t complain, and mostly I think it is a great system. But I use lots of software in my life, and none needs updating as often as WordPress. So it seems that the frequency at which we have to upgrade is really high. And yes, we should probably just say a big Thank You to the people at Automattic for giving us WP, but I do believe that this is a legitimate grievance that should be addressed.

For example, let’s say that there’s nothing we can do about it and we’ll be upgrading WP on a regular basis forever; so at least there should be a less painful way to upgrade, like scripts, as another blogger suggested (can’t remember who). Also, every upgrade is so scary since you never know what you’re going to find when you go back in.
James

WordPress is okay for those who need a blog. For developers who need to do something substantial. WordPress sucks.
Leave it at that. The only thing I think we be the downfall of wordpress is the open source community itself which has a tendency to promote insecure software which leads to more spam and breaches in general.
Who can blame a wordpress user. It works and does what it says. But for everyone who is not technically adept at what is actually happening under the hood, they very often install plg-ins which just ruin the entire experience.
Wordpress is okay… it’s everybody else that sucks.

WordPress sucks, WordPress sucks not. Which one is it?

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