A Non-Blog

Disclaimer: I have nothing against WP, WP themers, WP users, WP fanatics, or WP evangelists. You’re all doing a great job. I’m just bored with it.

After playing around with Expression Engine yesterday, I think it’s time for me to graduate from Wordpress to EE.

Why the switch? The first thing I noticed about EE is the number of built in functionality that, in WP, would require Plugins. Example: Expiration Date for posts. Already there. This is a no-brainer for a CMS, I think.

Speaking of CMS’s, EE is a CMS. Not like WP where you have to make it a CMS, and then it’s really a blogging-engine-made-into-a-CMS. Why? From a client’s perspective, I notice that WP is really not easily manageable at all. It’s almost like it’s too abstract. You tell them:

• put the title here
• put the content here
• put your image here
• put the rabbit in the hat
• wave your magic wand, while saying abracadabra
• sprinkle fairy dust in the places you want this post to show up
• select the category and tags
• click publish
• and your post will appear where you willed it to in your spell

And then the client asks you, “Remind me what a ‘post’ is again?”

WP is great, don’t get me wrong. But there has been a lot of drama regarding its open-source-ness, licensing, premium themes, and if my future-goggles are accurate, some of this mess will eventually pull the community apart and WP will go back to being a blogging engine (it’s intended purpose) rather than growing the f up and transforming into a real Content Management System.

Also, I hate the word “theme”. It seems elementary: “What will your three year old’s birthday party theme be?” or “Vote on the Junior Prom theme now!”

That said, I don’t think I would “get” EE unless I had a close and personal relationship with WP. WP has taught me a lot. A lot about php, a lot about databases and mysql, but mostly, a lot about what to look for in a CMS.

*tear