[wp-hackers] Making it better

[Mark Jaquith]

Owen Winkler wrote:

> I agree that the notion that PHP is required for WordPress is a myth, 
> but we must also accede on the level at which a user's desire for 
> customization excedes the capabilities of the default software.
>
> Every comment I've seen made about how WordPress requires PHP is 
> prefaced by some crazy notion of customization that no other system 
> would be able to support without additional coding in its native 
> programming language.  Should we even entertain these outlandish 
> customizations as a failing of WordPress?  If so, then it's also a 
> failing of any other blogging software that doesn't read a user's mind.

Yes.  Thank you.  To customize Movable Type fully, you need to learn a) 
the Movable Type templating language with its loops, it's tags, its 
options, its if/else loops and b) Perl.  To customize WordPress fully, 
you learn some basic PHP.  Maybe it's just me, but PHP is a much more 
approachable language than Perl.

I've used Movable Type.  I wanted to do some fancy stuff that wasn't 
supported out of the box.  It was a major, major pain in the ass.  In 
fact, to be able to do fancy stuff in MT templates, I eventually started 
sticking the MT tag output into PHP variables and then using PHP to 
perform logic on them.  Heck, Brad Choate runs his entire site that 
way.  So now, you have to learn MT tags, Perl, and PHP.  And CSS is 
something you have to learn for any webdesign, no CMS can eliminate that.