[Post originally published on May 8, 2017. Updated on February 26, 2019.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Official rant: WordPress’ basic approach is backwards from what old school (1990’s, HTML) folks, like me, expect to see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I want to start with a structure<\/em> and then fill it in with content. WordPress seems to think that I want to start with the content<\/em> and then create the structure<\/em> around it. Huh? That is like saying that, when you build a new home, you place your belongings on the dirt of the empty lot and then frame the house around your belongings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Don’t dis’ my analogy! It’s spot on! \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n\n\n\n I want someone else to make the structure and to make it pretty. I want to take that pretty structure and fill it in with my useful content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What I did at first, when I first started playing with WordPress in 2017, was what I thought I was supposed to do. I searched the web for a beautiful and appealing WordPress theme. I found one. I looked at the demo page. It was beautiful, with the menu bar I wanted and the pages I wanted. Excellent! Then I installed it…<\/p>\n\n\n\n Where did the pages, menu bar, and images go? Poof! I had to create them myself, from scratch, to re-invent what I saw in the demo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What? I could have just downloaded a good-looking, responsive, HTML5-compliant website template, replaced the graphics and text with mine, and badda-boom, badda-bing, I would have been in business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It must be the SEO aspect of WordPress that is the attraction. Certainly I could run a blog without installing WordPress, learning PHP, managing an SQL database, figuring out the difference between “tools”, “settings”, “appearance”, “plugins”, and “widgets”, et cetera. (Ah, Grasshopper. Is it a “plugin” or a “widget”? We must unpack this…)<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the point of WordPress is to hide the complexity of coding HTML, CSS, Javascript, and PHP, and managing the server-side stuff, so that the end user’s job is easier, I would argue that WordPress does not accomplish that. WordPress DOES hide those things from the user but the end user’s job is still hard because WordPress REPLACES one learning curve with its own learning curve. Now I have to learn a whole new universe of complexity – the arbitrary universe of WordPress. Oh, and by the way, the user STILL has to deal with the complexity of the underlying technologies that make WordPress go. Case in point: To migrate a WordPress site you need to use FTP and you need to set up a pre-made SQL database on the new server and you need to run the “installer” PHP file on the new server. <\/p>\n\n\n\n How about the “custom HTML” feature of WordPress? Custom HTML? Seriously? I thought you were trying to protect me from mean old HTML! \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n\n\n\n Being an old school, guy, I would just have a static HTML web page. I would edit it. I would add a new paragraph and maybe an image. I would save the file. Done. Blog updated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sigh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [Post originally published on May 8, 2017. Updated on February 26, 2019.] Official rant: WordPress’ basic approach is backwards from what old school (1990’s, HTML) folks, like me, expect to see. I want to start with a structure and then fill it in with content. WordPress seems to think that I want to start with … Continue reading WordPress’ Paradigm is the Opposite of What I am Used to<\/span>