DEV Community: Scott Bowler

ClassicPress BETA released

Scott Bowler — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 09:44:07 +0000

It is with great pleasure that I announce the BETA release of ClassicPress and the migration plugin.

Head over to our blog post to learn more or go direct to the download page.

Release highlights

The BETA release is a major milestone and we are excited to introduce some key features, including:

ClassicPress automatic updates are now implemented
Work towards serving translations from ClassicPress infrastructure has been completed
Old code for compatibility for PHP 5.5 and lower has been removed
We have removed/modified more WordPress-specific wording and admin dashboard content
All build dependencies kept up-to-date using Renovate
Miscellaneous other fixes and development process improvements
The new ClassicPress logo and “business-focused CMS” branding has been added

The "scared of change" fallacy

Scott Bowler — Tue, 13 Nov 2018 08:10:36 +0000

Please note: This is an opinion piece by Scott Bowler and does not count as an official statement by ClassicPress.

I would like to put a topic to bed. Dislike of WordPress Gutenberg can not be interpreted as a fear of change, to make this claim is disingenuous and demeans the person this claim is directed at.

People who have made their career selling, maintaining, designing and building websites are in a constant state of flux and the vast majority of us are excited to discover, try and learn new technologies. In fact, the ability to embrace change for the benefit of our customers needs to be in our DNA, otherwise we will fail to innovate, compete and earn new business.

On a personal level, I love change so much that my daily routine involves jumping onto ProductHunt at 8am GMT every day (this is when the new products go live) to check out what's new - to see what I can embrace to improve my own workflows or improve the performance of my customer's campaigns. My evening routine involves browsing HackerNews, a variety of subreddits (/r/Laravel, /r/WordPress, /r/PHP), dipping into dev.to and of course chatting with people about ClassicPress.

When I'm not developing with WordPress/ClassicPress, I use the Laravel framework. I was on the BETA waiting list for Laravel Nova since it was announced a few months ago, and had adopted it into new projects within weeks of its launch. Why? Because it is absolutely fantastic! I've dedicated many hours to learning this new tool.

When talking to other people involved with the ClassicPress project I see the same passion for discovery and change on a daily basis. We LOVE change. ClassicPress itself shows a willingness and eagerness to embrace change. Dedicating hundreds of volunteer hours to building something new, building a new approach to community, building novel solutions, building a new brand (the list goes on) - all of this is a massive change from sticking with the status-quo and pushing forward with WordPress.

To say that I don't like Gutenberg because I don't like change is, quite frankly, ridiculous. I don't like Gutenberg because it's UX is horrendous. I don't like Gutenberg because it's buggy. I don't like Gutenberg because it's being forced into core and I'd prefer it to stay as a plugin. I don't like Gutenberg because it's going to cost my business hundreds of man hours in retraining, support calls and slower workflows.

The next time you accuse a Gutenberg naysayer of being "afraid of change", perhaps it's time for a moment of reflection.... Perhaps they're not scared of change - perhaps there is good reason why they don't like Gutenberg. Perhaps you should dig deeper and try and put yourself in their shoes.

It's worth trying change, right?

One question survey for WordPress developers

Scott Bowler — Sun, 14 Oct 2018 10:13:03 +0000

I would like to find out if there is an upcoming skill shortage with the launch of Gutenberg (built using React) in WordPress 5.0

WordPress is going to be dominated by Reactjs for the foreseeable future, and either developers will have to upskill or lose their relevance. This could also mean WordPress development is primed to become more expensive.

Share your answer here: https://twitter.com/GetClassicPress/status/1051405635395440641

Can you help? We need some stars...

Scott Bowler — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 11:35:52 +0000

We're hoping to open an account with OpenCollective so we can be transparent about our spend at ClassicPress.

However, we need to reach 100 stars on our project to qualify for an account. Would it be possible to star our our GitHub repo to help us reach that target??

Thanks very much in advance!

ClassicPress: A call for developer volunteers

Scott Bowler — Sat, 08 Sep 2018 09:33:29 +0000

A call for volunteers: API experts, automation experts (specifically in testing) and WordPress core developers. We're accelerating work on the infrastructure side of ClassicPress and we need more hands on deck!

Email scott@classicpress.net and please share with anyone you think would be interested!

Thank you for your support :)

Shall we see what Hacker News thinks about ClassicPress?

Scott Bowler — Fri, 07 Sep 2018 16:13:44 +0000

Visit the thread: ClassicPress (a WordPress fork) opens community voting

Make your voice heard - vote for the features you want in WordPress (aka, ClassicPress)

Scott Bowler — Fri, 07 Sep 2018 15:13:32 +0000

TLDR; for newcomers: ClassicPress is a fork of WordPress, focused on community-led decisions. There are dozens of people working on it and it's your time to decide the direction we take.

VOTE NOW >>

Hacker News thread here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17935408

Quick update for people who have been following our progress: v1 of ClassicPress will be a LTS version of WordPress 4.9 without Gutenberg so people can switch knowing their site won't break. v2 will diverge and follow a development track as decided by the community (with sensible checks and balances in place).

And now the time has come - you can NOW VOTE FOR THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN WORDPRESS / CLASSICPRESS!

Head over to https://vote.classicpress.net and make your voice heard.

The $500 MILLION dollar cost of WordPress Gutenberg

Scott Bowler — Tue, 28 Aug 2018 17:41:41 +0000

This is the elephant in the room - not that Gutenberg isn't ready for prime time. Has the WordPress team considered the knock on effect on Gutenberg? I explore this topic on Medium
https://medium.com/@scott.bowler83/wordpress-gutenberg-the-500-million-cost-to-business-c531cc70a2b1

First draft of the ClassicPress mission statement

Scott Bowler — Mon, 27 Aug 2018 17:35:51 +0000

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the following mission statement for the upcoming WordPress fork, ClassicPress

"The ClassicPress mission is to create and maintain a WordPress fork where major development decisions are approved by a majority vote. We believe that feedback from WordPress users currently falls on deaf ears and it is our mission to give them their voice back through a community led fork.

We have seen enormous resistance against the introduction of Gutenberg into v5 of WordPress and the initial goal of ClassicPress is to provide a version of WordPress that is Gutenberg-free.

From this base the community will be given a forum to propose future initiatives. As an example, a member might suggest to add Composer support and if the majority vote in favour, this request will be implemented.

ClassicPress is about getting back to basics because we believe the community as a whole are in the best position to make it the leading content management system in world, now and into the future."

Gutenberg: "The new editor is coming ... continued attempts to make it not be are more than a little pointless"

Scott Bowler — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 09:15:15 +0000

I got banned from the Wordpress forums (and for a fair reason, I broke the rules by mentioning ClassicPress in response to a review - and I also got a little bit ranty in a review I wrote of Gutenberg, sorry guys :s) and while I was chatting with the Wordpress forum team on their Slack channel about it I got the most definitive statement about Gutenberg that I've had to date:

"As far as Gutenberg goes, I can explain this very simply: Making it "optional" was never on the table to begin with. This is the new editor. The callout in 4.9.8 was informing users of this fact and showing them the new editor. It was not asking for your opinion on what should be, it was giving you a preview of what will be. The new editor is coming, it will be in 5.0, and so continued attempts to make it not be are more than a little pointless. The Classic Editor plugin exists if you need more time to adjust your workflow or find an alternative to WordPress, and that was mentioned in the callout as well. So my advice would be to best deal with it, because the new editor has been in development for nearly 2 years, and it is coming soon. There's no chance of it not coming soon, nor of it remaining a plugin. You're well too late to be voicing that opinion when the thing is nearly a year overdue. Just my 2 cents."

So there you have it!

ClassicPress - a Wordpress fork without Gutenberg

Scott Bowler — Tue, 21 Aug 2018 06:44:55 +0000

TLDR; Visit ClassicPress to learn about this fork

I love WordPress - it has made my life better.

I’ve been building websites for the past 18 years and my first experience of WordPress was of sheer delight. Over the years I’ve built hundreds of websites using WordPress and I have nothing but admiration for the people who contributed their time, energy and passion to such a wonderful open source project.

However, the winds of change are here and as the saying goes, ‘all good things come to an end’. I fear that we’re on the cusp of a disaster that will forever fragment the WordPress community and start the slow decline of WordPress as the content management system of choice.

What is the disaster I fear? In a word: Gutenberg.

Gutenberg is a drag and drop page builder with the admirable goal of making it easier for non-technical users of Wordpress to quickly create engaging pages. In principal this is a fantastic idea, and it is an idea that has been successfully deployed in a wide variety of hugely popular plugins.

My concern is that Gutenberg is not ready for prime time. It’s full of bugs, the user interface is inefficient, requiring endless mouse clicks and it doesn’t play nicely with the majority of themes already on the market. The team at WordPress have decided to force Gutenberg into v5 of WordPress despite massive push back by the WordPress community.

I’m in the “push back” camp. After my feedback on Gutenberg fell on deaf ears I realised that WordPress is no longer a community led project - major decisions are being made by an elite few.

Sadly, I decided it was time to move to a fork that doesn’t have Gutenberg as part of the core code. A quick search revealed nobody had taken the initiative so I decided to stop complaining and take action.

Enter ClassicPress

It was at this point that ClassicPress was born - a maintained fork of WordPress 4.9.8 without Gutenberg, focused on community led development. I’m fully aware that ClassicPress could cause the fracture in the community that I previously mentioned and it is my hope that this petition will stop ClassicPress from being needed, at least for the time being.

At this juncture I want to make clear that the the team behind the Gutenberg project is dedicated and are working hard to deliver their vision. They are keeping their heads up and forging forward despite the negative feedback, and for that they should be commended - I appreciate that this must be a very difficult situation for them. The petition and ClassicPress is in no way aiming to discredit their contribution to WordPress.

Having said that, if the petition fails I believe myself and hundreds of thousands of other long-time WordPress advocates will have no choice but to switch to ClassicPress to stop their old sites from breaking (and to keep their work flows in place for future sites). If this is the outcome, my goals for the ClassicPress project are simple:

Maintain compatibility with the WordPress ecosystem by keeping ClassicPress up to date with security patches, bug fixes and non-Gutenberg features from WordPress core.
To let the community lead the decisions of the direction ClassicPress takes.

I hope this article will raise awareness of ClassicPress so that we can at least have an open dialogue with the WordPress team. Matt - will you listen? Your most vocal advocates are becoming your most vocal critics.