I've been developing Wordpress themes for a while, and getting to know my way around this open source blogging/content management system. However, while there are things I like about the platform, there are also a few things I just can't stand as well. So I thought I'd share them with everyone (in no particular order), and ask for the community's views on the subject as well. So feel free to add your own "five things you love and hate about WordPress" here. My list is below. 5 Things I Love About WordPress It's free. Not just free as in "freedom", but more importantly, free as in BEER. Just download and go. So, 'nuff said. It can be used easily either as a traditional blogging platform or a full featured content management system, depending on how you set it up. The wealth of plugins and themes available to customize your WordPress installation (especially ses5909's "Ask Me" plugin). The community that developed around WordPress. Seriously. It wouldn't be anywhere near as popular as it is today without the people who use it also contributing to its development and adoption. The Codex. Whenever you need to look something up, this should be the first place you go. If only I'd listen to my own advice more often. Oh well, as the old saying goes, "All Glory to the HypnoToad Codex." 5 Things I Hate About WordPress I can't stand the search system. Come on, let me use "search" for the input filename instead of "s" for crying out loud! Not only does it have semantic meaning, but it's also easier to remember when typing in manually. It messes with mod_rewrite too much for my tastes. Code bloat. Everywhere from the PHP back-end that powers WordPress to the excessive use of classes and IDs where they don't belong in the HTML output. Really, it just makes the Web pages heavier, makes my HTML code look like garbage and even makes WordPress slower than molasses moving uphill during a blizzard for crying out loud! I like my HTML code to be indented properly. WordPress doesn't do that. But then again, anyone who knows me will tell you that I'm a markup freak anyway. The stupid wp- prefix being applied to everything. Look, somtimes I don't want people looking at my HTML source code to know that I'm using WordPress. Especially given the number of WordPress blogs/sites that were hacked over the past year. Franky, I'm starting to consider the prefix to be a security risk.
1. Easy to work with 2. Plenty of plugins + themes 3. The themes are completely seperate making changes easy. 4. Easy to upgrade. 5. Better than blogger. Dont dislike or hate anything about it.
Likes: 1. It's free 2. It's very easy to install, manage and navigate 3. There are plenty of useful plugins and themes Dislikes: 1. "wp-*" applied to everything 2. Too many similar sites using the same structure
The only thing I "hate" about Wordpress is the new image gallery tool. It's way too damned slow, and if you have to add a lot of images (which I have to do on one blog in particular), it's just ridiculous. I'd love the old image tool below the write post screen back, or at least to have the option. But the more they play with it design-wise, the slower things are getting.