Recently I heard a lot of buzz
about a something called WordPress.
Being a devoted java developer initially I rejected this framework for any
“Serious” application development. But over the period of time as I got a
chance to have a closer look at this framework slowly I started having a soft
corner for this framework (ok this can’t be compared to my more than 8 years
love for gorgeous Java). So let’s see what this new next door cutie is all
about? What it’s good at? And when should we consider it?
What
is WordPress?
WordPress
is a most widely used open source CMS (Content Management System) based on PHP
and MySQL. It is also the most widely used blogging
system. Its content is stored in form of Blogs and pages. You can divide your blogs in
different categories
and group similar articles together.
It comes
with an army of hooks that can be customized based on your requirement,
starting from something called themes
which can customize look and feel of site developed in this framework or say plugins which gives it an added
strength of performing operations which are not available in framework by
default. It also has widgets that can be added or removed on sidebars and
performs certain action on its own.
It also
has a nice GUI for admin screen where you can decide what theme you want to use
or what plugins you want to activate or deactivate (being open source it is
blessed by developers all over the world and has sizable number of freely
available themes and plugins. Long live Open Source Architecture).
Why WordPress
It’s Free, It’s flexible and it
can provide you most of the things you want on your website on few mouse
clicks. So you can download WordPress extract is on your system. Select what
theme or plugins you want on your site and start creating content for your
site. You are good to go live.
When WordPress
In a nutshell this framework is
pretty handy when you are developing a site where you do not have too many
transactional operations and your main purpose is to display some information (or
say content) to site visitor. For an example if you want to developer a site
for news content, a site for some yummy recipes, a florist shop, a cake shop (for
payment options you may have to buy some plugin that takes care of your
transactions but rest WordPress will take care of). Also if you have to many
logical decisions to take on your site may be you need to consider developing
something out of this framework. For an example if you are planning to develop
a site to keep track of user’s stocks this is not your perfect match (this
doesn’t mean that you can’t develop in WordPress. You can…but you may not).
Summary
It’s always help to choose right
technology or framework that best fits for your requirement. You can always drive
a Limo (of course if you have one or you can hire one) when you go for buying
your grocery but that’s not what it is meant for or you can have better and
more suitable options for this purpose. So always remember it’s like “Horses
for Courses”. Happy coding J
