Is WordPress getting too “fat” and vulnerable?
Vladimir Prelovac has written a very insightful critique about the direction of WordPress development. He states several concerns with what this piece of blogging software is turning into. First we have bloat:
But more importantly, I have noticed that WordPress is not developing “far” anymore, and it started going “wide” instead. By this I mean there are less inventions and new technologies with every update. There is just more functionality that relies on current existing technologies.
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WordPress started out like Google, but is now becoming more and more like Yahoo. It stopped going “far” and started becoming fat (”wide”). It is becoming slow and clumsy.
Second, we have security issues, most notably with WordPress plugins. Jeff Chandler at Performancing suggests the WordPress community could adopt phpBB’s plugin validation system.
All in all, Vladimir wants WordPress to focus on speed, simplicity, and security in future WordPress versions.
You’ll find Matt Mullenweg’s answers in the comments section. He mentions WP 2.3 is a lot more bloated and insecure than WP 2.6—better beware of this fact for those who haven’t upgraded! He also says he’s aware of speed issues, hence the integration with Google Gears, and the constant drive towards improving the backend:
I’m obsessed with speed. On the backend WP has done a ton to speed itself up, as evidenced by the fact that it now runs the largest blogs in the world. More than 1.6 billion pageviews a month are going through WordPress.
As for plugins, this is what Matt had to say:
There are some automated things we do to watch out for bad stuff but ultimately I think we need a human team of volunteers to keep an eye on plugin changesets. Is this something you’d be interested in helping out with?
What do you think? I think that as long as there is a strong community backing up WordPress, such issues will never go unnoticed. I can only hope that this same community continues to help out with new initiatives, such as plugin and theme inspection.
WordPress MU 2.6
WordPress multi-user or WPMU is now version 2.6, whose code was based on the standard WordPress 2.6 release. You’ll find similar new features like the return of the “Press This!” bookmarklet, Google Gears support, theme previews, and so on. Donncha O Caiomh has more details.
Download WordPress MU 2.6 here.
WordPress 2.6
After 3 betas and one release candidate, WordPress 2.6 “Tyner” is here. Automattic also put up a short video tour of the new version:
Discussed in the WP 2.6 announcement post are the highlighted features we’ve all been expecting for a few months now:
- Post Revisions: Wiki-like tracking of edits
- Press This!: Post from wherever you are on the web
- Shift Gears: Turbo-speed your blogging
- Theme Previews: See it before your audience does
- and many other smaller features and improvements
Ryan Boren discusses in depth SSL and Cookies in WordPress 2.6, which I’m sure is the first of many blog posts to tackle the new stuff under the hood.
WordPress.com now supports Google Gears
WordPress.com announces they now officially supports offline access through Google Gears. This means a faster and more enjoyable blogging experience.
To enable this feature, simply hit “Turbo” in your dashboard.
After that Gears will download around 200 files and store them on your PC. It will also update them when needed automatically in the background, no other actions are required.
For users using self-hosted WordPress, this feature will be coming soon in WordPress 2.6.
Sneak peeks of WordPress 2.6 features
Although we’re still a few months away from the next major release of WordPress, we can’t help being curious and excited about what’s coming up, can we?
Milestone 2.6
WordPress 2.6 is set to come out on August 7, 2008, according to the WordPress Trac page. Progress is currently at 7%, clearly a long way from completion.
Curious about other releases? Here are the tickets for WP 2.5.2 and WP 2.7.
2.6 Test Run
A live installation of WP 2.6 is up at Chris Johnston’s demo site. Username is admin, password is demo. If you want to test them on your own server, check out the Nightly Builds through the WP testers mailing list.
WordPress 2.6 Features
Several bloggers have brought up some of the major improvements with WP 2.6:
Post revisions
Keep track of a blog post’s revision history.
Identicons, MonsterID, and Wavatar support
Generate special gravatar icons for commenters who have none.
Google Gears support
Add Google Gears functionality for offline blogging.
wp-config.php location can be moved one level higher than WP install
Add sorting to gallery items
Integrate the Reorder Gallery plugin to the 2.6 core.
SHIFT+Click checkbox selection
Select multiple rows of posts, categories, comments, tags, etc. Gmail-style.
Press This bookmarklet
Quick posting bookmarklet that disappeared in 2.5 and will return to 2.6.
Further Reading
More information can be found at the following websites: Quick Online Tips, WordPress Expert, planetOzh, The Blog Herald.
Also visit the Codex page for WordPress 2.6 for further updates.
