The new WordPress dashboard, i.e. the secret control panel of this site
I love WordPress. I’ve used lots of blogging software, but WordPress has always been my favourite. It’s easy to install, simple, customisable down to the bone, extensible, hassle-free, lightweight, and the fact that all this is free and open-source is a true gift. I find it very difficult to fault it.
With the recent 2.7 release, there’s a new dashboard which fully takes into account research (done by proper research people) on where people look and how intuitively they perceive things. It is now so simple to operate the software that my mum could do it blindfolded. (Well, I haven’t tested that particular theory, but… it’s assumed.)
There’s more things that make WordPress utterly brilliant: it’s got a massive and thriving community around it, and there are even community ‘celebrities’ such as Lorelle VanFossen, whose fame blossomed after becoming involved in WordPress. These people will help you if you do run into issues (although I’ve never - if I remember correctly - had to ask for help, setting things up and getting them running is so damn easy.)
WordPress is also used by famous people. The New York Times, Top Gear, CNN, Martha Stewart, Stephen Fry - these are just some of the people who’ve used WordPress in applications that can sometimes be called ‘industrial’. It’s fabulous.
However, perhaps the most important thing is that I have never run across a WordPress ‘zealot’. I’ve never found a WordPress user who will insult a person for not using the same software as him. Indeed, Six Apart (the people who make Movable Type, WordPress’s main [proprietary] competitor) have been forced to resort to FUD in the past (something about not all of WordPress being open source - which it is - IIRC) and the responses from the WordPress community seem to consist only of honest and valid criticism. No pseudo-”Window$” or “Winblows” nonsense.
If only all FLOSS was like WordPress.
