Tag: WordPress (Page 159 of 219)

Over the last week or so, I’ve been writing about the various pillars of the WordPress Philosophy.

These include:

• Out of the Box
• Design for the Majority
• Decisions, Not Options
• Clean, Lean, and Mean
• Striving for Simplicity
• Deadlines Are Not Arbitrary
• The Vocal Minority

And today, I finally finish up with the Bill of Rights.

Ultimately, I’ve been looking at how I believe that the majority of us who are involved in driving the WordPress economy in some way have been ignoring these core tenants.

This isn’t to say that we’re all doing it, and this isn’t to say that they’re all being ignored, but I do believe that there are some significant issues that are happening within the WordPress product space that need solutions.

This isn’t to say that I have it figured out – hardly so – but I do believe that one of the things that many of us need to do is to begin forcing segmentation in the market based on how we price, support, and offer our products.

The final aspect of the philosophy to cover is that of the WordPress Bill of Rights. I almost opted not to write about this particular part because it’s directly influenced by the GPL which always has been, and always will be a fire starter of sorts for the WordPress economy.

Even still, it’s part of the philosophy and should be included.

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For those who have been following along, the purpose of this post should come as no surprise: I’m going to be talking about another pillar of the WordPress Philosophy.

Specifically, I’m going to be talking about The Vocal Minority which, in my opinion, is arguably the least discussed, and the least shared among all aspects of philosophy. That doesn’t make it any less important, though – it just means that we, as those who are involved in the WordPress economy, have more with which to familiarize ourselves.

Then again, to be fair, there are probably those who are just as familiar with this particular aspect of the philosophy as they are as much with the rest of the philosophy – and that’s great!

But remember: We’re primarily looking at how we can take the philosophy and not only how it applies to WordPress, but how we can apply it to the products that we’re building on top of it.

So the vocal minority – what does that even mean?

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When it comes to writing software – regardless of the type – it seems as if it’s always easy to get the first 80% done. This isn’t a new problem, either. You may have also heard it stated as:

80% of the work is done 80% of the time.

Or some variation thereof.

But anyway, when it comes to a project like WordPress – which is software – and it comes to projects being built on top of it – which are also software – then it stands to reason that they are subject to falling into the same trap.

And they are.

This is why this particular aspect of the philosophy is so important.

Of course, for anyone who has followed not only WordPress but who have worked on projects that sit on top of it as a foundation, then you know that deadlines have slipped and work that we do does miss deadlines.

There are so many different reasons that people can list for this that an entire series of posts could be written about each one in and of itself. That doesn’t mean that this part of the philosophy is being ignored, nor that we should treat it lightly.

If anything, I think it builds a stronger case for why it’s needed.

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When you look around the world – both online and offline – it appears as if the world is beginning to value simplicity more than it has in a very long time.

By this, I mean that the way that things are designed: From billboards or magazine covers, to the minimalistic approach of interior decorating, all the way down to the interfaces on our phone. On top of that, I think that we’re collectively beginning to understand that simplicity is not necessarily an antonym for complexity – instead, it’s a way that functionality can be achieved such that it’s easy for the consumer.

Complex operations happen all of the time through the use of simple actions. Think about what happens when you turn the key to your car, press the power button on your computer, and so on.

The neat thing is that WordPress values simplicity to the point that it’s included within its very philosophy. And for the past few articles, I’ve been writing about the WordPress philosophy and how we – as people who help to drive the WordPress economy – are disrespecting the philosophy.

I want us to turn that around.

First, if you’re just catching up, be sure to read the previous articles in the series:

• Out of the Box
• Designing for the Majority
• Decisions, Not Options
• and Clean, Lean, and Mean

With that said, let’s talk about simplicity.

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Over the past week or so, I’ve been looking at each of the pillars of the WordPress Philosophy – many of which I think that we, as developers and designers, have completely ignored in our work – and have been talking through what is says, what we’ve done, and potential ways that we can correct it.

Up to this point, I’ve covered:

• Out of the Box
• Designing for the Majority
• and Decisions, Not Options

There’s obviously more to come since the philosophy encapsulates more than just those three. So I’m going to continue moving forward with “Clean, Lean, and Mean,” which is arguably one the pillars that’s talked about the least.

I say that because when you talk to other people about WordPress or building things for WordPress, they are generally familiar with some of the ones mentioned above (and some not mentioned yet), but this is not only one that you don’t hear much about, but this is one that I’ve think many of us have just completely disregarded.

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