Using WordPress as a Development Platform

USING WORDPRESS AS A DEVELOPMENT PLATFORM Why you should ditch your Custom CMS in favour of WordPress (and how to convince your boss)Powered by Whisky

BRIEF INTRODUCTION • Who is Japh? (rhymes with “strafe”) • Web developer • Mainly PHP, MySQL, and JavaScript • Worked in corporate environments, start-ups, freelance, and agencies in Australia and the UK • Experience with various Open Source platformsPowered by Whisky

BRIEF INTRODUCTION • Why this topic? • Working for agencies using custom CMSes • Using the right tool for the job • WordPress as a one-size-ﬁts-mostPowered by Whisky

BRIEF INTRODUCTION • What will I get out of this talk? • If you and/or your employer already use WordPress for everything: • A good argument to convince others • If your employer doesn’t use WordPress: • A good argument to take to your boss • If you don’t already use WordPress... keep listening!Powered by Whisky

WHERE TO START • Assessing your needs • Basic blog sites • Simple and advanced CMS sites • eCommerce sites (big / small) • Web applications • Open Source platforms to the rescuePowered by Whisky

CHOOSING A TOOL • Base tool to cover most projects • Some of the most popular options: • Drupal • Joomla • WordPress (obviously.) • Custom CMSPowered by Whisky

COMPARING DRUPAL PROS CONS • Good platform for very • High degree of proﬁciency complex projects required • General add-on and plugin • Daunting admin (also, no rich- development more consistent text editor by default?!) quality • Multiple versions (5, 6, and now • GUI for Custom Content Types 7), disparate communities • Look good to big enterprise • Difﬁcult upgrade path • Custom Content Types stored in DBPowered by Whisky

COMPARING JOOMLA PROS CONS • Good for localisation support • Multiple versions (1.0 & 1.5), disparate communities • Uses MVC architecture • Rigid structure • Less user-friendly admin interfacePowered by Whisky

COMPARING CUSTOM CMS PROS CONS • Ultra ﬂexible • To be continued... • Do things your way • Add support for whatever you like / need • Customers locked in • Intellectual propertyPowered by Whisky

WHY NO CUSTOM CMS? • Financial overheads • Bugs that appear within the CMS itself • Implementing new core features • Documentation • SupportPowered by Whisky

WHY NO CUSTOM CMS? • Hiring new staff gets harder • Higher level of expertise required • Can’t hire staff with existing experience • Senior developers’ time gets divided • Developers often aren’t beneﬁted by the “pros”Powered by Whisky

WHY NO CUSTOM CMS? • Full team required • Development and design time for all previously mentioned aspects • Ease of use for customers • User tested • Customer quote: "quick, how do i use the [Custom CMS]? … Ive uploaded a video to the [web site] backend but I dont know what the **** to do with it!"Powered by Whisky

SELLING WORDPRESS • Why WordPress? “but WordPress is just for blogs” • Easy for customers to use (user testing since the beginning!) • Easy for both designers and developers • Huge community, and easy to get involved • Easy... but also powerfulPowered by Whisky

SOME WORDPRESS STATS • WordPress has been downloaded more than 34.25 million times • WordPress 3.1 had over 300,000 downloads in the ﬁrst 24 hours • WordPress VersionsPowered by Whisky

SOME WORDPRESS STATS • WordPress has been downloaded more than 34.25 million times • WordPress 3.1 had over 300,000 downloads in the ﬁrst 24 hours • PHP VersionsPowered by Whisky

SOME WORDPRESS STATS • WordPress has been downloaded more than 34.25 million times • WordPress 3.1 had over 300,000 downloads in the ﬁrst 24 hours • MySQL VersionsPowered by Whisky

WHAT HAVE WE COVERED? • Decide what work you mainly do • Decide best platform to cater to most jobs • Can we still use other systems for jobs? Of course!Powered by Whisky

THINGS WE CAN DO BETTER • Documentation (Keeping up-to-date, backward compatibility) • Including educating users on best-practices and avoiding pitfalls • Think about backward (and forward) compatibility when developing plugins and themes • Quality control. High coding standards! • Promote WordPress to enterprisePowered by Whisky

QUESTIONS? Find me later http://twitter.com/Japh http://japh.com.au/Powered by Whisky

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Using WordPress as a Development Platform

by Japh Thomson

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