[wp-hackers] One CMS to Rule Them All (was This was painful to read...)

[Jared Bangs]

On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 2:49 PM, Mike Schinkel
<mikeschinkel at newclarity.net> wrote:
> On Dec 2, 2009, at 5:42 PM, Jerry Johnson wrote:
>> I am all for keeping wordpress small, fast and tight. Because it rocks that
>> way. I can bloat it fine on my own.
>
> There's a belief held by many that adding features necessarily affects performance negatively. That is not by any means a rule and to make decisions based on only that assumption does a disservice to the broader community.  Having the option of custom post types and the option of URL routing should not negatively affect those sites that do not use those options if the enhancements are architected with performance in mind.
>
> -Mike Schinkel
>

"Fast" is only one of the things he mentioned, and not one that I was
really addressing at all in my concerns. A primary reason to keep any
software project as small and as focused as possible is complexity.
The more code you write, the more features you add, etc. the more
difficult it can become to maintain in the future, which then leads to
more bugs, security issues, etc.

Like Einstein said, "everything should be as simple as possible, but
no simpler".

If you believe (as I do) that "WordPress is not, and should not be,
all things to all people" (to quote Otto's first message in this
thread), then it's better to identify up front what it should be, and
vigilantly guard against scope creep that introduces complexity in an
effort to exceed those boundaries.

If on the other hand, you think that WordPress is (or should become)
the ideal solution for every possible web project (a position I think
is clearly wrong and cannot relate to), then it would make sense that
the scope of the core WP project would need to be (or become) enormous
in order to accommodate that.

In the past, the core devs have strongly supported the position of
keeping the focus on what WordPress is designed to do. I think the
more clearly defined "what it's designed to do" is (and thus the more
constrained the scope) the easier it will be for WordPress to
accomplish that goal and do it well.

This thread isn't about particular features, it's about a mindset.
Specifically, one that sees a problem or project and says "how can I
handle this... with WordPress" rather than just "what's the best way
to handle this". It's my opinion that the former approach is overly
narrow, and CAN lead to the advocating of unnecessary core features in
order to support it.