I just can't believe wordpress

Seriously… I can’t believe Wordpress is popular. The more I’m disappointed with the wordpress developers. Its poorly developed.

Just today i found out they’re storing all the url-rewrites in the database under wp_option [url-rewrites] all the URL rewrites are in JSON encode. I have a client that has a 60MB ROW! not table… ROW. LoL!

I couldn’t believe my eyes… so I thought this has to be one of those ****** plugins. So i took a look at a basic wordpress site i installed and behold RULES in the database

I have a rule with storing JSON in a row, i try to keep it less than 500kb and that’s alot. If there’s any chance JSON needs to grow more than that, tells any database engineer ’ HMM… Maybe it needs its own table.’

the following is half of a basic wordpress installation
a:68:{s:47:“category/(.+?)/feed/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$”;s:52:“index.php?category_name=$matches[1]&feed=$matches[2]”;s:42:“category/(.+?)/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$”;s:52:“index.php?category_name=$matches[1]&feed=$matches[2]”;s:35:“category/(.+?)/page/?([0-9]{1,})/?$”;s:53:“index.php?category_name=$matches[1]&paged=$matches[2]”;s:17:“category/(.+?)/?$”;s:35:“index.php?category_name=$matches[1]”;s:44:“tag/([^/]+)/feed/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$”;s:42:“index.php?tag=$matches[1]&feed=$matches[2]”;s:39:“tag/([^/]+)/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$”;s:42:“index.php?tag=$matches[1]&feed=$matches[2]”;s:32:“tag/([^/]+)/page/?([0-9]{1,})/?$”;s:43:“index.php?tag=$matches[1]&paged=$matches[2]”;s:14:“tag/([^/]+)/?$”;s:25:“index.php?tag=$matches[1]”;s:45:“type/([^/]+)/feed/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$”;s:50:“index.php?post_format=$matches[1]&feed=$matches[2]”;s:40:“type/([^/]+)/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$”;s:50:“index.php?post_format=$matches[1]&feed=$matches[2]”;s:33:“type/([^/]+)/page/?([0-9]{1,})/?$”;s:51:“index.php?post_format=$matches[1]&paged=$matches[2]”;s:15:“type/([^/]+)/?$”;s:33:“index.php?post_format=$matches[1]”;s:48:“.*wp-(atom|rdf|rss|rss2|feed|commentsrss2)\.php$”;s:18:“index.php?feed=old”;s:20:“.wp-app\.php(/.)?$”;s:19:“index.php?error=403”;s:18:“.*wp-register.php$”;s:23:“index.php?register=true”;s:32:“feed/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$”;s:27:“index.php?&feed=$matches[1]”;s:27:“(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$”;s:27:“index.php?&feed=$matches[1]”;s:20:“page/?([0-9]{1,})/?$”;s:28:“index.php?&paged=$matches[1]”;s:27:“comment-page-([0-9]{1,})/?$”;s:38:“index.php?&page_id=8&cpage=$matches[1]”;s:41:“comments/feed/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$”;s:42:“index.php?&feed=$matches[1]&withcomments=1”;s:36:“comments/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$”;s:42:“index.php?&feed=$matches[1]&withcomments=1”;s:44:“search/(.+)/feed/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$”;s:40:“index.php?s=$matches[1]&feed=$matches[2]”;s:39:“search/(.+)/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$”;s:40:“index.php?s=$matches[1]&feed=$matches[2]”;s:32:“search/(.+)/page/?([0-9]{1,})/?$”;s:41:“index.php?s=$matches[1]&paged=$matches[2]”;s:14:“search/(.+)/?$”;s:23:“index.php?s=$matches[1]”;s:47:“author/([^/]+)/feed/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$”;s:50:“index.php?author_name=$matches[1]&feed=$matches[2]”;s:42:“author/([^/]+)/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$”;s:50:“index.php?author_name=$matches[1]&feed=$matches[2]”;s:35:“author/([^/]+)/page/?([0-9]{1,})/?$”;s:51:“index.php?author_name=$matches[1]&paged=$matches[2]”;s:17:“author/([^/]+)/?$”;s:33:“index.php?author_name=$matches[1]”;s:69:“([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{1,2})/([0-9]{1,2})/feed/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$”;s:80:“index.php?year=$matches[1]&monthnum=$matches[2]&day=$matches[3]&feed=$matches[4]”;s:64:“([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{1,2})/([0-9]{1,2})/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$”;s:80:“index.php?year=$matches[1]&monthnum=$matches[2]&day=$matches[3]&feed=$matches[4]”;s:57:“([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{1,2})/([0-9]{1,2})/page/?([0-9]{1,})/?$”;s:81:“index.php?year=$matches[1]&monthnum=$matches[2]&day=$matches[3]&paged=$matches[4]”;s:39:“([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{1,2})/([0-9]{1,2})/?$”;s:63:“index.php?year=$matches[1]&monthnum=$matches[2]&day=$matches[3]”;s:56:"([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{1,2})

This URL rewrite is just 1 of 50 other things i found really pathetic about wordpress.

It isn’t uncommon for major content management systems and contributed code to store data in a serialized form. I work with Drupal and the same thing is done for very complex entities where it really be isn’t practical to have a normalized structure. It still is wrong from a database architecture point of view but in some cases I can understand it. Though I’m not sure if this qualifies as one of those cases. I hate wordpress as well.

WordPress show the major issue we have using PHP, that the average skill level for PHP programmers is quite poor. Which makes it harder to get into enterprise projects.

We ran a multisite installation of WordPress for a client a while ago with 200k+ active blogs, and to archive that we had to rewrite all of the plugins they wanted to add + several sections of the core WP code. (+ of course a larger server cluster). Luckily that is now over on a custom solution that does the same as WP did and more, but require a lot less servers to handle the load.

You might want to reduce that even more, depending on the way it is accessed. As if that row is pulled at a high frequency (high load) from the DB that could effectively kill your bandwidth. This is mainly an issue if the cache layer fails (assuming the data is cached on the server level as well, if not it is a high traffic issue), which they sometimes does and just one failure like that can cost hundred thousands of dollars if your client has a promotion going for example.

In my opinion, Wordpress is convenient and perfect for a small business or new business with young entrepreneurs. It gives possibility to quickly develop a website that finished and runs, easy to maintain by the business owner without a big risk to ruin it and to stay in shoe-string budget for the whole site. And keep money for promotion.

I have people who come to me and they have $600 for the A-Z finished website, they need CMS, about, blog, contact, tweet widget, home slider with 5 customised images and portfolio section or shop. They dont have more money! They pay some extra for the images and they buy themselves the domain and hosting plan.
They dont want to go on freelance websites and pick up somebody cheap there because they need me on phone when they delete a page.

Of course, Wordpress it’s not a Ferrari. But some people need a car to go to work and they buy Opel and happy with German quality.

Each time I press the upgrade button on my blog, my heart rate goes up. Even if I have a local copy of it, I just can’t trust it.
I spent probably 1-2 hours yesterday trying to fix opt-in skin. Uninstalling it didn’t really uninstalled it, there was still crappy data somewhere in the database. I just switched to another temporary solution until I get more time to fix it.
But, well… you can still set-up an OK website in 2-3 hours, choose from thousands of different themes and plug-ins. And it works. Just don’t look at the generated HTML though.

I know. I disable updates for my clients and do them as late as possible, and I start to sweet when I have to update >10 site to newer wp version. I know that WP is pretty stable, it wont break the site, it could just cause some minor hiccups (mysterious black line somewhere, or images behaving funny) but it can be fixed.
For me, it’s a matter of efficiency/money worth. As I told you, not everybody can buy a Ferrari no matter how long you will explain that I took hours and hours of handcrafting this car.
By the way, I see hundreds of websites of very famous people and there websites run on Wordpress. Wondering why? These people can afford very expensive website created by big agency and fully handcoded and on Drupal. No. I’d like to speak one day with somebody who creates these kind of sites for these people and hear his/her arguments.

Well, I had my blog breaks because there was some kind of conflict between 2 plugins. Nothing was working. I was lucky because I tested it on my local site before :wink:

I guess that if you just need a blog, WordPress is good enough! They probably prefer to pay somebody if it breaks than to build a custom solution from scratch, it’s still cheaper I guess. Or they just heard that “WP could do anything” so they asked for it. Who knows.

Core WordPress re-writes? lol :smiley: I guess the people at wordpress.com have been doing it all wrong all these years, don’t know what they smoke! :wink:

My day job is to work on half a dozen very high traffic websites & they’re all powered by WordPress! And I seriously don’t want to disrupt the little “I hate WordPress” session going on here! :wink:

Btw, SitePoint itself runs on WordPress, they migrated from a custom CMS to WordPress years ago.

It might be an idea not to bring up something you dont know anything about.

Automattic modify the code that wordpress.com runs on, and from time to time they release the tweaks/updates to the community, either by merging it into the wordpress core or as modules.

I think I know about how Automattic works especially wp.com as I work with them day in & out. :slight_smile: So to quote you - might not be a good idea to tell someone something about which you have no idea! :wink:

Btw, my comment was not derogatory or sarcastic or to poke fun at you. Its just that I mostly see people diss about stuff they don’t know jack about (again, not pointing at you) & now I just find it amusing. :slight_smile:

IMHO:
AM not sure if I would blame this entirely on WP or WP devs. Sometimes his is everyone cutting corners. WP was , at it’s core, a ‘powerful’ personal blogging CMS … because of it’s versatility and PRICE, it became popular; begin offered to clients who wanted to keep project costs down ( and maintain control over future alterations, or even attempt to do them inhouse!)

Most of what you see is actually CLEVER workarounds of WP core’s limitations. If you have expectations of large scale sites being run AS EFFICIENTLY as a custom solution then you have unrealistic expectations of the real world.

@dresden_phoenix
Spot on. Infact, its not just WordPress, comparing any off the shelf CMS with a custom solution is unrealistic as off the shelf CMSes are built in a more generic way which would suit a large number of people so the architecture decisions made for them would be quite different than a custom app. Its more about how easily a CMS allows you to customize it and build upon it your website. In my experience WordPress is more flexible and easier to bend which is one reason for its popularity. Yes that does take a hit on performance and that is something which can be dealt with. Personally sometimes WP does frustrate me but then that is the thing, you have to weigh the pros & cons and see which of them weigh more for you! :wink: