The Truth About WordPress’s Programming Quality

• April 9, 2015
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WordPress has not only acquired many supporters throughout the years but several naysayers.

It’s unsafe. It’s not secure; too easily hackable. It’s too simple. So what’s the truth about the number one content management system’s programming quality?

Commonplace observations include that as WordPress was not made for techies (the platform was originally crafted for bloggers) it simply doesn’t need to be the most well-coded framework.

Another is that even if there was a competing CMS, better coded with quality admin, it would be nearly impossible at this point for it to reach prominence, as WordPress’s open source nature means that it’s being improved by thousands of people around the world every day, allowing it to maintain an upward trajectory for the foreseeable future.

More features, less simplicity

Contrarily, there have been questions regarding the lack of core concepts like template inheritance, a solid and standardized OOP API, a live deprecation system and more fundamental built-in plugins.

While it’s true that these concepts are missing, it’s also true that WordPress’s simple nature is one of its most attractive qualities, and while the above features would make developers’ lives easier, they likely would only serve to make users’ lives harder.

So while we empathize with those developers who question the quality of WordPress’s base programming, we have a pertinent question for the developers themselves: isn’t this your job?