Thread

Wordpress 2.8 video

The amount of back end customization is beautiful.  Wordpress is doing a great job improving the user experience.

I am not concerned with the administration part, just the publishing work flow which I haven’t been able to match in EE. Last year the AJAX Kaylee interface was beautiful, but in the meantime the competition has innovated so far. 

The other place I am seeing EE fall behind is comments.  We havent exactly been current for a while, but the level of reply, quarantine and management controls in wordpress is so far beyond EE it hurts. P2 is the perfect example of something EE just can’t do.  I love EE for its flexibility, speed, elegance, ellis labs and this wonderful community- I hope we can work to stay technologically current so that other options don’t seem so tempting.

There is just no Comparison between EE and WP.

If you are a freelance artist or a WAHM then WP seems really handy to deploy a boiler plate blog site for very little cost. But it will never harness the power of EE, and certainly not compared to the next version, EE 2.0.

I agree that there are some EE users out there that would like turnkey type modules but for everyone of those there are 10 more users that want the flexibility to build their site the way they want. As a developer it’s sometimes hard to make the right decision as to which direction to go. But the answer always comes back to flexibility.

I have seen many of the module developers starting to implement really neat interface options to help speed up the setup process for a site builder, and I am sure we will see more of that.

Although we rarely take on “small” projects, I still find it easier to deploy a EE site then deal with working in word press. Like This Site we were able to do in a weekend and it’s a completely customized website, not a template that looks like everybody else’s site. You couldn’t do that with WP.

“Give a man a fish, feed him for a day, teach him to farm, feed him for life.”

There is just no Comparison between EE and WP.

Without question, WP 2.8 is another gem. Progress seems to have increased in the past couple of years. It’s impressive. But a comparison isn’t really valid, as EE can do so many other things which are just painful in WP, unless you can do more than spell PHP.

WP seems really handy to deploy a boiler plate blog site for very little cost. But it will never harness the power of EE, and certainly not compared to the next version, EE 2.0.

Boilerplate is probably the right word, which, in a nutshell, tells the difference between setting up and running WP vs. EE. I haven’t seen enough of EE 2.0 to make much of a judgement. The control panel interface is slick, but no more so than WP.

There are some EE users out there that would like turnkey type modules but for everyone of those there are 10 more users that want the flexibility to build their site the way they want.

In sheer numbers of users, I would think it’s the reverse of that. But for EE users, of course, some of us would prefer some kind of ‘standard structure’ to develop towards, but most of us require the customization that EE provides, and which is painful in WP.

It’s sometimes hard to make the right decision as to which direction to go. But the answer always comes back to flexibility.

Italics mine. Does it ever. I can get a basic three column, multi-tiered site up and running in EE in a couple of hours. It may not have all the widget bells and whistles available to WP users, but the ability to build beyond WP is enticing.

“Give a man a fish, feed him for a day, teach him to farm, feed him for life.”

Supposedly from an old Chinese proverb. Others include:

“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today.  Teach a man to fish; and you can sell him fishing equipment.”

“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today.  Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime.  Teach a man to sell fish and he eats steak.”

“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today.  Teach a man to fish; and you will not have to listen to his incessant whining about how hungry he is.”

I am on the same page as gramps.  I agree development is vastly superior in EE.  I am not looking for turn-key modules or to build micro sites or any of the other things you mention.  I am talking about where EE is beaten by WP.  I am saying this as a diehard EE user/evangelist that spent 6 months, 2 years ago, migrating his whole development team to EE.  I am not comparing the two on a feature to feature basis- I am however comparing them on WP’s best features.

I have used solspace’s, Leevi’s, ngen’s and all of Brandon Kelly’s they are all brilliant and functionally light years beyond WP, but their user experience doesn’t live up to WP. Those are wonderful benefits to me as a developer, but I want to button up my user experience for others and stay current on modern community features.  WP has superior user experience for clients/content managers, a better commenting system with modern features that every major website has (threaded replies etc).  2.0 has previewed with improvements in some of these categories, it has a lot to live up to if it is to compare to where WP has gotten to in the meantime. I feel that as developers in this community, we have a responsibility to rally behind functionality we believe in.  The work that the WP team and community has done in the above areas is worth looking at and trying to replicate at the very least.

i recently picked up a new client that needed an update on their WP blog, part of the process was updating from 2.something to 2.8. I was pleasantly surprised with the nice interface, it did look good, but personally i have seen products that are as good or better - so it did not make me want to convert everything to this! There are certain features that do stand out with WP, and basically in this series of posts threaded comments, plus other bits seems to be the main target…
But hey, who’s to stop this being developed as a opensource plugin for EE - enough people have requested it! I am sure for $20-$40, you would see plenty of sales!

Threaded comments? Never saw the need for it, but Mr. Wilson has an extension for it if you must have it.

Threaded comments? Never saw the need for it…

Customers have. That’s an important distinction.

Wasn’t it Henry Ford who said customers can have any color car they want… so long as it’s black?

I believe so, but then this “automobile” of his never really took off, did it?

I believe so, but then this “automobile” of his never really took off, did it?

As you know, Ford wasn’t the first to build an automobile, though he was quite successful in the early years, and eclipsed many other auto manufacturers, especially at building affordable cars on the assembly line. The analogy, of course, has to do with the long-noted fact that Henry Ford didn’t pay attention to what his customers wanted (cars with features, color, style, etc.), and therefore lost the company’s lead in the market to other, more nimble manufacturers.

That was then. This is now.

Ford is building some great cars but not without tremendous sacrifice, and though they’re positioned well to weather the economic storm (compared to Chrysler and GM a few months ago), now they have to compete against car manufacturers who’ve shed debt and financial obligations. It’s a tough world.

The moral of the story (coming full circle now), is that old Ford would have done better by listening to customers. The new Ford would do better by installing EE on all their web sites.

😉

Ingmar, I know you are a vet here and that you have contributed an unquantifiable amount of material to this community and to the code base both through your work with solspace and ellis labs.  That said, we are talking about the current state of blogging, which includes a comment system and comment management that is far beyond the current state of EE.  I love EE as a CMS but it is rapidly falling behind as a blogging platform.

Mr. Wilson is MIA half the time and his site is down, how can you really offer Weever as a viable place to get this functionality?  WP does reverse ip whois lookups for each comment, and the management interface is killer.  Automattic has had the benefit of being able to focus on blogging so their publishing and commenting systems are evolving rapidly.  The top-down support for new features in that community is a boon to the developers and is what allows the community to produce and iterate so rapidly. 

The dismissal of a feature just because you don’t need it, that seems completely the opposite of how I have seen you handle hundreds of other issues.  Gramps is right on the listening part.  We aren’t asking Ellis labs to make all this happen over night, just to be supportive of the obvious demand that is out there.

Look just come on guys and be straight up, I believe the OP is right and these are much needed improvements I hope are in 2.0. Yes you all can state that WP is this and that but at the end of that road it kicks EE’s butt in some areas. Yes EE is the winner for me and should be for everyone but that is not the dream world we live in. I think there does need to be some features that are really stepped up on, commenting is one of them. I went with Solspace’s Ratings module and it still lacks ajax, threading, thumbs up/down voting, etc, guess what they don’t seem to care.

The thing here is we cannot be ignorant or agorant when it comes to our livelyhood, developers are good for that backend usability but the end user the one that generates the cash for us wants the ajax and interactivity. Nobody wants to pound away all their hours trying to make something work that is already there in WP. I am not hating on EE just saying I think we need to wake some people up before WP catches on to EE’s magic.

That said, we are talking about the current state of blogging, which includes a comment system and comment management that is far beyond the current state of EE.  I love EE as a CMS but it is rapidly falling behind as a blogging platform.

You’re raising an interesting point. Personally, I still consider EE’s comment module perfectly adequate, and haven’t encountered anything that I wasn’t able to do with it, but I am not much of a hardcore blogger I admit. So, the comment module might be up for a rewrite at some point, perhaps, but as we know EE has evolved into much more than a specialized blogging application so I am not sure how much priority this has—or should have, for that matter. Not that it’d be for me to decide, obviously.

We aren’t asking Ellis labs to make all this happen over night, just to be supportive of the obvious demand that is out there.

You know, I’m not worried about that at all. EL has a great track record of listening to user input; I don’t see that changing in the future.

Didnt read all the replies but what comes to my mind is simply this:

Internet is coming more and more interactive and static sites are Out Of The Days. Been that long time. So therefore IMHO commenting and all other interactive components are important for all companies and their websites. Whats more better than straight answers from customers, straight ideas or “goods and bads”. If you get your customers or potential ones, hooked and coming back for just to see whats new - and same time they can participate and feel like the are “part of the company” - more happy clients you get and more sales are done.

So what ever EE2.0 brings us into backend - i do hope it comes with ideas and things to make your company website serve better, interactive way our customers. If its just a showdown platform with few minor and not “up to date” commenting, rating, etc. modules - it might be not so good thing.

As far as what comes in our native websites here in Finland - people(net users and potential customers) wants more and more to get involved someway, they want to write comments, discuss, give thumbs up and so on, so i think website, was it for selling clothes, music, food, what ever - it should be able to be so interactive that your potential and present customer gets “hooked” into it. And your business is doing well…

PS. I’ve seen here that more and more companies and cities etc. are started to use softwares such like Joomla! and others. Why - because of the components and management with interactive speedway between users and the siteowner! Same time in personal level - people here are using WP in writing blogs OR keeping their portfolios, writing test articles and getting more attention within the searchengines. So if i were in EllisLab Team - i might say that “hey, we dont want to forget this part of users so we need to make EE to be the best ever” 😉

@eyevariety,

Thanks for starting this thread - it’s an interesting discussion.

WordPress
I love developing in both WordPress (WP) and EE, since each has its advantages. My experience is that WordPress is better suited for sites that don’t require extensive custom coding (but, with the right plugins and multiple loop work, it can do almost anything). WP’s content management is excellent; adding pages and posts is a breeze, even a pleasure.

One of the biggest advantages WP has over EE is its interface (which is why I’m excited for EE 2.0). The look alone makes it less intimidating and easier for people to use (my personal opinion based on some experience). The built in WYSIWYG editor and media management is fantastic, and comment handling is superior (it’s too hard to manage comments in EE, while it’s fun in WP). I think EE 2.0 can easily address these issues.

ExpressionEngine
I’ve found that WordPress has its limits, especially when you need fine-grained control over output. The whole concept of assigning custom fields to weblogs is absent in WordPress. I can’t, for instance, control the headings for the custom fields in WP, which makes it hard for clients to understand what value should go in a custom field. In EE, I can not only provide a heading, but instructions. Relationships are also easier to set up in EE (are they even present in WP?).

I like to get my hands dirty with the code, so I find EE to be a better choice when I need to add PHP snippets or talk to the database. It could be that I haven’t worked with WP as much, but I just find EE to be much better for building not just serious CMS-based sites, but also web apps (we run our intranet on EE and our [coming soon] website on WordPress).

Just my two cents (or two bucks, given the length of the reply…).

Ryan

Just my two cents (or two bucks, given the length of the reply

Good summary. WP has come a long way toward becoming an attractive and capable CMS-lite, good for basic blogging, though the learning curve gets steeper with the need for more customization and fine grain control, all which EE does very well.