Dude, WordPress needs a rewrite. | Hacker News Reader

Dude, WordPress needs a rewrite.

adamhallett.com

11 pointsatomical18 comments

A complete rewrite of a mega-popular project is a big ask. If you're going to make a big ask like that, it behooves you to make your request as persuasive as possible. This request could be made more persuasive by answering the following questions:

* No real caching engine support in the core (APC, memcache, etc)

Why is the popular WP Super-Cache plugin inadequate for caching? Perhaps it should be shipped and enabled with the default install, which would be one hundred million times easier than rewriting the core.

* There is no built-in support for an ORM or other databases like Postgres.

WordPress is deliberately built around the most ubiquitous language/database environment: PHP and MySQL. What would it gain by giving up this simplicity and supporting a different database? Would the tradeoff be worth it, given how many other CMS's exist?

* The obvious answer is to rewrite WordPress with Django

In what way would the result still be WordPress? WordPress is distinguished not by a unique feature set, but by ubiquity and ease of deployment, which would be lost if it were rewritten in Django.

* There is no built-in support for an ORM or other databases like Postgres.

Not to mention that ORM's add weight to any application, why is why he might have made the caching is first issue.

A big "ask"?

FYI, "ask" isn't a noun.

Well, there is common usage that says that it is a noun, for example: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/make-the-ask/

"The obvious answer is to rewrite WordPress with Django"

Wait, what?

Yeah I'm sure they'll get right on that.

I expected some light banter on the fact that there are sooooo many deprecated functions in the API that it is sometimes a little dizzying keeping the stuff straight. Instead, I came away with nothing. Besides, Wordpress is the most popular blogging software on the web, so I imagine that their easy-to-understand at a glance API and simple PHP/MySQL setup has done nothing but HELP them.

> The obvious answer is to rewrite WordPress with Django.

WordPress is popular largely because its requirements are met by virtually every single fly-by-night three-million-sites-per-server web host. It's one of the few blogging engines that is virtually guaranteed to work anywhere.

Try finding a $3/month web host that supports a Django app.

This is a very important point and really takes into account a lot of WordPress's growth.

I agree with a few of his points, especially the HTML injection parts, but the whole point of wordpress is how easy it is to run and install, switching to django would possibly destroy this. This seems like a classic case of irrelevant conclusion.

But heck, just write your own CMS and compete with wordpress. You wouldn't be the first.

Wordpress is a gateway drug to programming. Not happy with the API, write your own... I think that one of wordpress's major strengths is the incredible amount of man hours spent on that product, probably more than a hundred thousand people have programmed to some extent on it, and that gives a product which possibly can fulfill any need, but also has a security patch twice a month.

Myself, I've written my own blogging engines/cms which is fun but I've gone back to wordpress recently and the latest versions are pretty slick. I don't think django could easily do wordpress selfupdate.

Of course none of the old plug-ins would work. But is that really a problem?

Yikes.

Well maybe the real motive here is to swap wordpress for a dog then shoot the dog.

I call BS. His number 1 point: "No real caching engine support in the core (APC, memcache, etc)" is a lie.

We even wrote plugins for APC, eAccelerator, and XCache to leverage the already exposed support for using these variable caches: http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=12 ...back in 2007!

While i can agree that wordpress could use some redesign internally, a rewrite in django is definitely not the way to go. A new blog engine/cms in django? Sure, but there is too much invested in the current architecture of wordpress to just throw it to the curb.

Dude, need is a pretty strong word. Excellent caching plugins exist, and I'd venture that most WP blogs don't need them (or stand to gain much from Postgres).

"Of course none of the old plugins would work. But is that really a problem?"

WP has an incredible plugin & theme ecosystem. Whether or not you'd like to leave it behind, you can't just dismiss it like that.

Sounds like what you want is quite different from WP. Why use it?

> The obvious answer is to rewrite WordPress with Django.

For some reason I don't find this obvious.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com