[theme-reviewers] Thesis WP Theme

[Otto]

On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 6:31 PM, Darren Slatten <darrenslatten at gmail.com> wrote:
> The fundamental difference in perspectives--as far as I can tell--can be
> summarized by answering the question: "What is the ideal WordPress Theme?"
>
> Personally, I would say something like:
>
>> The ideal WordPress Theme would be a really complex Theme (in terms of
>> features, without sacrificing usability) that tries to provide the options
>> and flexibility necessary to accomplish anything and everything. Default
>> appearance is minimalistic, and the Theme is mostly concerned with content
>> structure. Design and presentation enhancements are handled by Child Themes.
>> For most users, Plugins are not necessary, as most of the common Plugin
>> functionality is already integrated with the Theme. A theme that natively
>> supports a certain feature set is more robust than one that requires
>> multiple Plugins (from a variety of developers) to work together.

Yeah, that is *absolutely* the wrong way.

The theme is the presentation layer and should be *only* the
presentation layer. Everything in a theme should be concerned with
presentation of the site, and *nothing else*.

Plugins should handle any and all functional code. A theme that tries
to implement this sort of thing natively invariably a) does it badly
and b) becomes complex and difficult to modify. What's more, if a user
doesn't like a theme's implementation, then he has no choice but to
not use that theme. With plugins, he has a choice to use a different
plugin.

Separation is the correct way. Each "thing" should do only one thing
and do it well. Small parts interacting and working together to form
the whole. If you make one part big and complex, then you make it
difficult to modify, difficult to maintain, and difficult to use.

-Otto