Should WordPress’s Code Be Re-Written From Scratch?
One of my work colleagues is about to start a project using Pligg, but we looked at Drupal first. I was impressed by Drupal’s desire to have the best, cutting edge code by literally re-writing the complete code in each release, with no consideration for backwards compatibility. It made me wonder, should WordPress do this as well, rather than trying to maintain backwards compatibility?
Drupal claim that they offer “vast, often radical new improvements” with each new major release. Although WordPress 2.1 has some nice features, I wouldn’t describe any of them as radical.
Maybe WordPress is too becoming too mass-market for it not to provide backwards compatibility. But, I still personally think that WordPress’s core users are blogging enthusiasts who don’t mind having to tinker with code to get things working. In fact, for me, that’s half the fun of blogging!
Is this something you think WordPress should consider - just wiping the slate clean and re-writing clean, modern code?
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Comment by Sridhar Katakam on 1 February 2007:
That will have both advantages (efficienct code, modern features) and disadvantages (backward compatibility w/ plugins, themes). I think the developer community of Drupal is much more than that of WP. So they can afford to choose that model.
BTW, speaking of Drupal, I’ve started a series of posts on how to create a Drupal powered site for scratch including screencasts. Chk it out: http://www.sridhareena.com/2007/02/01/creating-a-web-site-using-drupal-1/
Comment by Thilak on 1 February 2007:
I would agree with Sridhar on this regard.
Comment by NLP Master on 18 August 2007:
Hmm- I think that if Wordpress goes the Drupal route, I’d definitely give up Wordpress. The idea of having to take down plug-ins and (possibly) restructuring the SQL database is horrible! It’s like doing a reformat and reinstall every upgrade. This is profit-losing downtime for many webmasters