A few comments about some of the code changes in 1.3. Very nice to see people appreciating some of the hard work we’ve put into this iteration. In a perfect world we could stop the clock and rewrite large portions of the code from scratch, but that would take a long time and break a lot of things in the process. All programmers want to do this, it’s our weakness, but every time I get this urge I think of Netscape and how devastating their rewrite downtime was. We’re making some substantial changes but doing it gradually while introducing new features and responding to users needs.
For example, in 1.3 “the loop” is called very differently but it’s completely backward compatible with everyone’s 1.2 loop code. We deprecate things over time so any structural changes that need to be made come gradually for people upgrading, there’s nothing to drastic every time. This also saves a huge amount of time in support. (Regular users don’t want to have to redo their templates, hackers don’t want to relearn code they already knew.) Same for the new theme system we’re introducing, it adds a lot of flexibility, radically changing how the front end of WordPress operates (like plugins for templates and styles) but all the new stuff is completely optional. I’ve transitioned most of my custom code into a personal “theme” that makse upgrading a lot easier for me (which is good because I do it almost daily).
Next time you get the urge to rewrite from scratch think about the testing your code has gone through, all the edge cases that have already been addressed, the existing installed base, and how many new bugs you’ll introduce with the from-scratch code.
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Matt Mullenweg is one of PC World’s Top 50 People on the Web, Inc.com’s 30 under 30, and Business Week’s 25 Most Influential People on the Web. 
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Christian Gloddy | October 11th, 2004 @ 2:38 am |
I haven’t been following the beta at all (not due to lack of interest but lack of time), but I’m finding myself fairly excited after reading this post. Looking forward to it.
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Clay Heaton | October 11th, 2004 @ 8:38 pm |
I just want to say thanks for all of the work that you’ve put into WP. It’s a great tool, extremely accessible, and wonderful for a variety of applications. Danke.
dan | October 11th, 2004 @ 11:57 pm |
I just switched to WordPress after having been a loyal Movable Type user for over 2 years. I persuaded several people to begin using Movable Type, and now that I’m using WordPress, I’m letting them know of the features I like. Overall I am very pleased with it. There is of course room for improvement, but the basic functionality works well and a few well-chosen plugins has made the configuration quite easy to work with. I’m looking forward with great anticipation to the release of 1.3, and have considered helping out on the development process but I have yet to get some free time from my job as a computer programmer. When that happens though, I’ll probably be volunteering to help out. Keep up the good work.
bernard | October 13th, 2004 @ 1:19 am |
Are there much bridges to cross untill version 1.3 is released ??
petite anglaise | October 20th, 2004 @ 4:09 pm |
I recently moved from Blogger to Wordpress 1.2 – with no previous knowledge of CSS or PHP. I have had a great experience so far, fantastic support from the forums whenever I was banging my head repeatedly against the wall and am really pleased with the result.
Can’t wait for 1.3. Keep up the good work.
Lee | October 29th, 2004 @ 1:54 pm |
I’ve recently my site to the 1.3 alpha and I’m very impressed with it. Another great job well done so far. The addition of themes and pages comes from listening to the demands of you users and I for one am very appreciative of it.
My thanks to all the WordPress team.