Creative by Clark is delighted that WordPress is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
Creative by Clark selected WordPress as its sole CMS for design and development over 14 years ago in 2009. We began experimenting with the platform in 2005 following the initial WordPress Plugin Repository launch. We observed the commitment to best practices in WordPress development as open-source software. We saw the extension of the functionality provided by plugins as a promise of things to come, and that has undoubtedly been the truth. Many talented WordPress developers think out of the box to create plugins (and themes), bringing WordPress to its current level of excellence.
When WordPress was six, Creative by Clark abandoned Dreamweaver as its principal development tool. We had been involved as beta testers of Adobe software, including a powerful new web-based tool called “In-Context Editing” for Dreamweaver websites. At that point, only Dreamweaver itself or a minimal application called “Contribute” was available to provide local, desktop-based website content management. Adobe promised those in the program that we would have access to the final In-Context Editing online content management product for a low monthly subscription fee. However, Adobe renigged and bundled In-Context Editing into their costly Business Catalyst platform that also required their proprietary website hosting for an obscene price.
At that point, Creative by Clark decided to move away from Dreamweaver to a yet-to-be-determined dynamic CMS. We built the same website on several platforms (Drupal, WordPress, Joomla!, etc.) in parallel to test and evaluate the efficacy of each tool. We also asked some clients of differing abilities with technology to provide their input. WordPress was the hands-down winner. Debbie Clark immersed herself in learning the platform, and it is now our sole focus, although from time to time, we do have to help a partner with a site built in Drupal, Shopify, or Squarespace (usually in a pre-conversion to WordPress).
As WordPress approaches its 20th Anniversary, seeing how this robust CMS has evolved and what the future holds continues to excite us. While Creative by Clark still does not embrace the Gutenberg editor, it is improving. We will likely begin a more serious exploration of Gutenberg on some test websites as staging copies to evaluate whether we can start using it on new projects or retrofitting. But for now, we find the Classic Editor more intuitive and robust.
No longer just a blogging platform, it is possible to build genuinely sophisticated websites with nearly any type of application with WordPress. We’re happy to share this excellent article from Yoast: the developers of the Yoast SEO family of free and premium plugins. They have long been involved with WordPress’s core development as open-source software. And they have a terrific historical and future perspective to share!