One of my daily break-time reads is Coding Horror. Jeff Atwood is almost to 100k subscribers on that blog; it's quite popular.
Today Jeff's post rags on WordPress, the blogging engine that powers this blog as well as all the others my wife and I have. It's free to use. The user base is very large, and I've been able to find answers to most questions I've had by searching the discussions on wordpress.org. It's made a whole boatload of bloggers a whole lot of money — all for free. (Jeff's using it himself on some of his other projects.)
His issue du jour was WordPress's cacheing ability. I don't really have the traffic to notice that the pages could load faster, but apparently the default installation of WordPress accesses its databases a lot more than it might need to. He installed WP-Cache, a WordPress plugin that's also free, and the CPU load got much better.
Problem solved, right? Yes, but not without more than a page of griping and groaning about why this plugin hasn't already been integrated into the default distribution and suggesting that the programming is sloppy and even “brainlessly stupid.”
Jeff has a lot of cool stuff on his blog but once in a while his posts tick me off. This was one of them. I think his complaining lacks class. A bit like going over to a friend's for dinner and critiquing the meal harshly. I'm not saying WordPress is perfect, but I wouldn't slam it because (1) it's free, (2) I didn't contribute a single piece of code to it, and (3) a solution to the problems are usually available with a small — sometimes surprisingly small — amount of work. If I do have a problem with WordPress, it's up to me to figure out how to live with it or fix it, since the software is given without warranty. Even better, I can find a fix, or dive in and fix it myself, because all of the source code is right there! But ripping up one side of it and down the other is just about useless and reeks of laziness. It's better just to shut up.
I guess there will be a fraction of users who will take advantage of freely-available, open-source software and assume that the development team and other dedicated users are their free staff that must provide service promptly and endure all kinds of abuse. Of course, it doesn't work that way, and contributing users don't have much patience for these kinds of users.
“You don't like the brainlessly stupid way we render our pages? Well, we'll gladly give you double your money back. Now go away.”
To me, this whole thing is about use cases.
If your blog is anything like mine, I doubt you get more than a few hundred visitors a day. I imagine that the *vast* majority of WordPress users are the same.
So for most users, this is a none issue for the entire operating life of their software.
Jeff Atwood is running in a different league to what we're operating in. He's probably getting a visitor every couple of seconds. Under that load profile, you definitely need some sort of caching.
Should caching be rolled in to the main product? Yes, I absolutely agree with Jeff on this one. WordPress should be able to handle his use-case just as easily as it handles ours.
Does he have a right to bitch about it? Perhaps! The quality of a great deal of open source software is now so high that you do have a realistic expectation of quality when you use it.
But I think you're right to highlight the fact that we should be grateful of the work these people and release for free.
Simon
WordPress is open source. If he doesn't like something, he should fix it.
I agree with Simon's comment on use cases.
The other thing you have to consider is while caching saves on CPU, it consumes more memory. Caching isn't free. On a blog with low traffic, caching can consume a great deal of memory and provide little to no value.
I honestly don't see what the big deal is, install wp-cache or even better wp-super-cache and move on.
My opinion is, the only people that have a right to complain about WordPress are the people contributing to the code. It's open source, if you don't like something, fix it.
Cough, cough – excuse me – I'm choking on the irony. True or false: you read and enjoy Coding Horror for free. It is a free source of information, entertainment, and food for thought.
Free, as in, does not cost you anything. Yet you are complaining about it. To quote you, "Ragging on free stuff lacks class."
Presumably, you are complaining about it for some of the following reasons: you feel your gripe is justified, you feel the issue should not have arisen in the first place, you feel that by making your voice heard some change might arise. Jeff was likely complaining for the same reasons, yet you accuse him of lacking class because WordPress is free? So, what's your excuse for ragging on HIM?
To adapt your list, I would recommend you NOT complain about a blog you read for free because (1) it’s free, (2) you didn’t contribute a single piece of writing to it, and (3) a solution to the problems are usually available with a small — sometimes surprisingly small — amount of work (i.e., stop reading it).
@Erin, your comment lacks class 😉 (oh no! now I do too!!)
Since WP's default installation includes wp-cache as an unactivated plugin anyway, I don't even know what he's complaining about. It's a two-click deal. Was it that hard for him to click "Plugins" "Activate"?
Erin: That's an interesting argument, but I don't think it's quite the same thing.
Responding to a blog post is part and parcel of being a blogger. It's like engaging in a conversation, or a public debate. Do people lack class because they debate?
Me enjoying CH is not the same thing as me using and enjoying WordPress. CH is not an open-source product. I can't change anything about CH. Nor is the content the real product there: it's the traffic that he sells to advertisers and uses to earn affiliate commissions. Now, if I got free advertising and complained that the conversion sucked, then that would lack class.
WordPress, on the other hand, can be changed and developed by anyone who knows what they're doing, Jeff included. The correct response to problems in this case is to roll up one's sleeves and fix it.
Instead, he wrote a post on it, not too subtly insulting the developers, and goes on to comment that he hopes that the post will have some positive effect (as if someone over at WP will take his comments as constructive criticism).
I agree that you have every right to respond to CH. The only thing I saw wrong with this post was not the underlying idea (i.e., why not just fix the code instead of rag on it?) but the righteous and (IMO) hypocritical tone you took. You say, hey, it's my right because I'm a blogger. Well, consider that complaining about code (and thereby letting the community know what issues you're dealing with and inviting fixes) is part and parcel of being a coder, no matter how proactive and eager to improve the product the coder might usually be.
I did not say that reading a blog and utilizing open-source software was the same thing. YOU said that "ragging on free stuff lacks class" – well, I stand by my point that the value you get from CH (and there must be some if you read it every single day) is free to you, so it counts as free stuff.
Though of course you may have communicated with Jeff privately or through his blog to make your point known, THIS post is not debate. Just as you accuse Jeff of "not too subtly insulting the developers", you state directly that his content is lacking class, reeking of laziness, and just about useless. That is not high-minded debate, that's an attack; moreover, it's one that has even LESS of a chance of resulting in some positive change than his original post had (since at least in that case, other developers may have taken up the cause, while in this case the most you could hope to accomplish is making people agree, "Yeah, that guys sounds like a real jerk!").
Now, look, I love MBH and read it regularly. I think in general you have a very positive, insightful take on things which is why I value your opinion. But nothing will convince me that you pointlessly and angrily ragging on a fellow blogger is legitimate, while him pointlessly and angrily ragging on a product makes him a classless, lazy jerk.
Simon: I guess I'd be ticked if WP decided to not work one of these days, and I do take almost for granted that it does work so well. Jeff is also in a position to do more than he is. I think they're aware of the problem, as Mrs. Micah pointed out that the cache plugin is now distributed with WP.
Erin: I'm glad you enjoy this blog. Thanks for reading.
One thing I want to make clear is that I do not think CH is run by a "classless, lazy jerk." I don't think I said that, and if I implied it, that wasn't what I was after. I think his complaining in this instance lacks class, but I don't think he himself lacks class.
What hit me on the side of the head with this post is that a large majority of the bloggers that I regularly interact with who don't use Blogger use WP, and they tend to make it work more or less with an online smile on their face. (A few use MT but it's a distant third.) They (like me) have issues with WP and come to the MBN Forums and search ask around: "Is there a plugin that does X?" And almost always there's a solution that does at least 90% of what they want, and things hum along. I'm not used to people voicing so loudly how much they expect out of their free products.
As for whether my post is a legitimate way of responding to it, I guess that's for my wonderful readers and the rest of the web to decide. I have at least one "nay." 🙂 There are other situations that this can apply: hand-me-downs, gifts, services done gratis, etc. If you've gotten more than what you paid for, I don't think it's right to complain about it.