Friday, 12 May, 2017 UTC
Summary
Do you know WordPress, this tool that powers 27% of the web? This big old CMS everyone loves to hate because It’s oldish, it’s PHP and it’s not an SPA? but in the same time, everyone uses because it’s so great at achieving the goal it’s designed for: creating content? Well! It’s time to stop criticizing and take a look at what’s happening in the WordPress community and what we’ll get for the next iteration of our beloved CMS?
Revolution or evolution?Disclaimer: I work for Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and highly engaged in the WordPress community. I also work on one the next WP editor project.
WordPress is currently powering 27% of the web, but at the same time, the web is evolving. Mobile is taking over the desktop, richer UIs require more client-side interaction and less server-side rendering, new compelling competitors arrived in the CMS market which promise simpler UI to create richer content. If WordPress wants to stay the 1st choice and continue growing, it has to address these issues and that’s exactly what we’re trying to do.
In the last WordPress US, Matt Mullenweg declared that the main focuses for the next WordPress releases would be:
- The REST API.
- Evolving the WordPress Editor into a block-based editor.
- Leveraging the blocks to simplify the customization (site building)
The REST API
The WP REST API has already been merged into WordPress in 4.7. It’s not just another feature, it’s a big shift in the WordPress philosophy. This already enables new ways to interact with your WordPress content. Think “Headless CMS”, “SPA Themes”, “Mobile applications”. Also, parts of the WP Admin are being rewritten to leverage the API. Exciting times, slowly, WP admin is shifting to an SPA!!!
The Editor
Have you ever tried these compelling editors allowing you to insert blocks and move them around like LEGO bricks to build your post’s content? That’s exactly what the new WordPress editor would be like. And in fact, you can already try it as a plugin. It’s far from ready but you’ll get a sense its UI.
If you’re interested, you can follow the progress in the Gutenberg GitHub repository. And on the weekly Slack meetings on the #core-editor channel.
And you know what? It’s built using React, Redux, and modern JavaScript. Yep, true story, WordPress is embracing modern Javascript Development a and React.
These technical choices are not set in stone yet, this is still being discussed on the weekly #core-js meetings but yeah, WordPress is being modernised!!!
Stop hating WordPress, you’re using it every day, it’s time to get involved!!!