Wordpress
Musings on Wordpress. .
28.06.2021
I love WordPress . . I hate WordPress. I think many users feel the same but like it or hate it WordPress is a great blogging platform.
So I could have created my own blogging platform (very basic with current skills) or I could have used one of the many, many good CMS engines around – see my reference page for a list (its coming soon, I promise, if you do not see it yet) – but I thought that I would spend too much time actually generating the site, styling it and caring too much about the detail that I would never start my journey to being a web developer, and that is the problem!
I recommend that you don’t spend too much time setting up a framework to use as you may never really start to build content, followers or learn how to do both! With a single click install on my hosting account I was able to setup a WordPress site and I just chose the ‘Twenty Twenty-One’ Theme.
So that is why this site looks the way it does and I am intentionally not using this site as a showcase for my designs or coding skills, I will link to other sites I create or use CopePen or GitHub etc.
Why do I hate WordPress?
It is too big and can be slow and (probably) because it is built on PHP is prone to being vulnerable to hacking and therefore requires constant updating and supporting. When major updates are released it seems to break whole or parts of sites and it can be tricky to resolve.
To use a Theme properly you should setup a Child Theme or risk your site changing when updating and this is too tricky for most users in my experience.
When you need to do SEO it can be annoying and difficult. Basically you have to use Yoast plugin or similar, otherwise it involves editing the header.php file and this seems to be strongly discouraged in every post I read about it. This should not be so difficult to do. Why is this area not being more easily integrated? Comments anyone?
Backing up and restoring a site can be difficult, you can set up a plugin to make backups but to restore one (or move one) can be too difficult for a non-techy.
My notes after working with WordPress:
Try to keep the installs as ‘vanilla’ as possible. Avoid adding too many plugins, a lot of what you may wish to achieve can be done by editing the Theme (better the Child Theme) settings or CSS and php files.
This makes it easier when – in a couple of years time – you need to update to a major new version of WordPress or change the Theme.
