[wp-hackers] Wordpress as a CMS

[Mike Schinkel]

On Dec 22, 2009, at 9:20 AM, Peter Westwood wrote:
> BackPress.org has more info.
> 
> The activity on BackPress has been decreasing partly because there isn't much that needs changing in it and partly because very few people know it exists.
> 
> There was a huge spike of activity at the beining of the projects life when all the code from WordPress was imported - the shared code hasn't changed that much since then so it is unlikely to have increasing activity by its very nature.
> 
> I am trying to keep the code in BackPress that is also in WordPress in sync so that one benifits to the fixes from the others.

So it is a fork of WordPress then?  That is worrisome because "code syncing" projects often get abandoned.  If it were a new foundation for future WordPress, that would spur more interest (in me.)

> I know that every tool has its trade offs but it seems to me from a lot of what you have commented on about your issues with WordPress as a CMS you want to do things in such a radically different way that some of the higher level bits of WordPress get in the way some of the time.

By saying "radically different" you are using words to tarnish my needs, probably inadvertently, but still.  Propaganda is all about using words to sway the audience to your perspective and by saying what I need is "radically different" you are biasing others subconsciously to fight what I'm asking for.

WordPress is sooooo close to what I need.  It just needs to be able to handle custom post types and special case URLs. That's really not a big architecture change, it's a small optional layer which, btw, I'm working on with my upcoming Post Type Voodoo plugin.

> BackPress gives you a framework to build your site from which doesn't preclude you using WordPress as well and using all those plugins and themes - it really comes down to what you are trying to build

Unfortunately, it's currently too obscure for me to write code depending on it.  If tens of thousands of devs start using it and it starts getting hundreds of plugins of its own, I'll be all over it.

> 
>>> If you have any BackPress questions then please let me know off list and I can point you in the right direction.
>> 
>> Thanks for the offer.  I'd be interested if it were something a lot of people were using and actively writing about.  If I am somehow misunderstanding its role then I would be very interested in learning more about it.
> 
> I know there isn't much being written about it.  A big part of that is that you don't necessarily know you are using it.  Everytime you use WordPress you are effectively using BackPress as it is a subset of the WordPress code.

Effectively and Actually are unfortunately too very different things.

There is much being written about CakePHP; for (people like me) to use BackPress there needs to be similar activity.  The easiest way for that to happen is to get WordPress to be based on BackPress, not have BackPress be a fork.

> There are currently two public projects using BackPress and a number of private/not yet public projects
> 
> I hope that helps answer some of your questions.

Very much, thanks.

-Mike