I have designed and developed web sites nearly all my career. Let’s just say that developing sites using Front-End AND Back-End tools is tough. Technically, there are three tiers to nearly every website. The third tier is called a ‘Database’.
Now, I have seen many complex but elegant projects fail over the last 20 years as a professional developer. But it’s never a failure of the developers, it’s never a failure on the part of Managers.
It’s just that the technology world has evolved. WordPress is by FAR the most popular platform in the world. WordPress makes it easy for clients to maintain and manage their own content. THAT is what it is really about.
Throughout my career, the driving goal was the ‘Democratization of Business Intelligence’. Early in my career, I developed Reports. When you have 20 accountants and financial analysts in a company, there is a sizeable amount of work to do. But as my career progressed, the main goal was NOT to see ‘how many reports could Aaron develop’. Don’t get me wrong. I have personally developed THOUSANDS of Reports. Whether the platform was ‘Crystal Reports’ or ‘Microsoft Access’ or ‘SQL Server Reporting Services’ I have literally developed THOUSANDS of reports on each platform. I *LIKE* building reports. I am darn GOOD at developing reports.
But the bottom line, is this:
When you have 20 Accountants and Financial Analysts in a company, the REAL value is when you make those 20 people able to customize their OWN reports.
That is what WordPress is to me. Platforms that allow clients to rewrite the page that is called ‘About’ or allowing clients to rewrite the marketing jargon that is associated with their products. THAT is what is beautiful about WordPress.
I will give other reasons in Part 2.