Mar 20, 2013

WWW of WordPress


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