July 28, 2008

The inexorable drive toward improvement (dare I say perfection?) that characterises the WordPress project is not only a source of benefit, but also one of the main causes of difficulty and complaint. When WordPress 2.5 was released people complained about the new interface. At every release people complain that there are too many upgrades. Surely WordPress is good enough already?

It seems to me that WordPress is heading in a direction. I am not confident in the destination, intended or otherwise, but each new feature adds complexity and takes WordPress further from the ‘dead simple, gets things done’ WordPress that initially attracted me.

My first attraction to WordPress was a direct reaction against enterprise content management systems that are rediculously over specified and restrictive, and their open source cousin Joomla, so naturally I want to WordPress to keep its place as their oposite.

To an extent, that means reigning back the new features and considering how the system operates. What I would really like to see is the modularisation of the core. I would like WordPress to be a shell featuring user management, URL management, and a blank admin panel, into which each feature inserts itself in the same way as plugins add themselves.

This means that every feature (or combined features where absolutely necessary) sits in its own folder and can be deactivated, replaced or even deleted without any ramifications except the loss of that feature.

I think Backpress will help with this, but I don’t think it will ever happen. The attraction of adding new features is a strong one and far more interesting than altering parts of the code that most people never touch, or even see.

WordPress already meets my needs as a user. There is nothing more I need or want. Security patches aside is there really any need to add anything else?

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