Freelance, frontend web developer since 2010. Good at HTML5/CSS3 and WordPress theme development. Learning JavaScript for fun and to build an app idea I have.
What a substantive and well-written piece! As a WordPress custom site developer since 2010, I've been observing the trend to give every user everything and the kitchen sink of choices with dismay. I call them 'Frankenstein' sites; they have no regard for coding standards, are easily broken, low-hanging fruit for hackers and have dreadful page speeds.
Now, with Matt's change in direction to JS and Gutenberg, I'm watching the WordPress community develop in a K-shaped direction. The new 'WordPress Developer' will either be WP assemblers or JavaScript brogrammers.
Since my clients tend to be tiny, non-technical, non-writing, local businesses and entities, I've been asking myself what is the best stack for those of us here on the ground? My thoughts so far are to go back to a more vanilla approach. Static sites that need a someone with HTML skills to update. A skill that should be as common as typing in today's world.
I'm a software developer who writes about Laravel, JavaScript, Rails, Linux, Docker, WordPress and the tech industry. Follow me on Twitter @tylerlwsmith
Thank you so much for the kind words, Christine! And thank you for reading: this is one of the longest posts I've ever written 😅
It's been interesting to watch WordPress's transition since I started developing with it in 2017. The shift towards blocks seems primarily geared towards WordPress.com's needs, sometimes at the expense of the open source project. The Gutenberg block editor is excellent for writing blogs, but it's not ideal for building a crafted experience for a client.
The kitchen sink approach is a bad fit for organizations that want custom sites that they can maintain without fear of breaking. Both the block editor and page builder plugins invite a lot of opportunities for clients to break things. It's not ideal.
For non-technical clients who don't want to manage their own sites, plain HTML is hard to beat. It's portable and there are a lot fewer places for it to break. I do hope that more specialized open-source content management systems emerge in the future so there could be a nice middle ground between WordPress's kitchen sink and hand-crafted HTML.
Freelance, frontend web developer since 2010. Good at HTML5/CSS3 and WordPress theme development. Learning JavaScript for fun and to build an app idea I have.
What a substantive and well-written piece! As a WordPress custom site developer since 2010, I've been observing the trend to give every user everything and the kitchen sink of choices with dismay. I call them 'Frankenstein' sites; they have no regard for coding standards, are easily broken, low-hanging fruit for hackers and have dreadful page speeds.
Now, with Matt's change in direction to JS and Gutenberg, I'm watching the WordPress community develop in a K-shaped direction. The new 'WordPress Developer' will either be WP assemblers or JavaScript brogrammers.
Since my clients tend to be tiny, non-technical, non-writing, local businesses and entities, I've been asking myself what is the best stack for those of us here on the ground? My thoughts so far are to go back to a more vanilla approach. Static sites that need a someone with HTML skills to update. A skill that should be as common as typing in today's world.
Thank you so much for the kind words, Christine! And thank you for reading: this is one of the longest posts I've ever written 😅
It's been interesting to watch WordPress's transition since I started developing with it in 2017. The shift towards blocks seems primarily geared towards WordPress.com's needs, sometimes at the expense of the open source project. The Gutenberg block editor is excellent for writing blogs, but it's not ideal for building a crafted experience for a client.
The kitchen sink approach is a bad fit for organizations that want custom sites that they can maintain without fear of breaking. Both the block editor and page builder plugins invite a lot of opportunities for clients to break things. It's not ideal.
For non-technical clients who don't want to manage their own sites, plain HTML is hard to beat. It's portable and there are a lot fewer places for it to break. I do hope that more specialized open-source content management systems emerge in the future so there could be a nice middle ground between WordPress's kitchen sink and hand-crafted HTML.
I hope for the same!