[wp-hackers] WordPress Maturity (was)Re: hate

[Shasta Willson]

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 10:06 AM, SCOTT TAYLOR <scott.c.taylor at mac.com>wrote:

> I really, really dislike when people use the "wp-hackers" mailing list to
> complain about WordPress but offer no solutions for fixing it. Here's why:
>
> ...

>
> "I haven't figured out how to do X, so WP sucks"
>
> I think there are many scenarios where the developer is the problem, not
> WP. If you are running a website at scale and you don't know how to handle
> deployments and migrations and DB migrations, maybe you aren't the right
> person for the job. Or maybe you need to learn how to do those things,
> learn more WP internals, and learn how to solve problems. Try the Support
> forums. I know many people who can do those things, they aren't impossible,
> and in most cases, aren't even difficult, just takes some elbow grease to
> learn how.
>
> "There is a bug in WP, you guys haven't fixed it, so let's burn the house
> down"
>
>
And there it is. "Stop talking about the problems! A real developer would
just solve them."

We HAVE solved them, or we wouldn't be working in the field. I deploy sites
that range from small blogs to very large corporate presences regularly.
Because I have a deep background as a programmer (Java, not PHP) I also get
called in to fix other people's messes. I'd say those messes run 5:1 due to
the lack of integrated deployment strategy for WordPress. At this point
when someone says "my site just stopped working!" it's the first thing I
look for: is there a slideshow (etc.) pointing at a now-turned-off
deployment address?

As for offering solutions, a few months back I watched a fellow propose
that he personally would work on code to add to core to fix the
database-hack at deployment problem. He asked only for some assurance that
the leaders in the community were actually interested enough in including
such a solution that they'd consider his solution if it was solid. He
didn't get that. He got explanations for why it wasn't necessary, so I
presume he didn't proceed.

In many ways this is a hostile environment if you have anything other than
pure praise, no matter how carefully you explain your case or how politely
you put it. Nothing is perfect, but the ability to listen to criticism
openly is a sign of a mature environment, and absolutely critical to
improvement.

- Shasta