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TYPO3 and Wordpress

I just installed my first Wordpress site this weekend because a friend needed my help with launching "a quick and easy starter web page/site" to help with her business. Admittedly (and I'm almost ashamed to admit it), this was my first Wordpress install. And now I'm proud to say that it won't be my last. After helping her get her entire site up and running (from domain name registration to handoff) in UNDER AND HOUR (without ever using Wordpress before), I was simply amazed at the approach that the Wordpress community takes towards simplicity and ease of use.

Initially, I had thought of TYPO3, particularly since I've been developing sites exclusively with TYPO3 for the past five years. But for a simple page/site? I had run into this issue many times in the past with other friends and family who wanted the same, and in each case, the problem was that offering them a TYPO3 solution was often much more than they needed - essentially for the same reason you don't exactly need a Ferrari to drop the kids off at school! Not that TYPO3 isn't capable of handling a simple page. It's just that TYPO3 was designed to be the most comprehensive solution imaginable, capable of serving small sites and large enterprises alike. Yet the truth is: sometimes the grand vision of extensibility and configurability can interpreted by some as being "overdeveloped" - especially when all you want is a blog or a simple site.

According to Google Trends, Wordpress (after starting in 2003) quickly surpassed TYPO3 in overall popularity: http://www.google.com/trends?q=wordpress%2C+typo3. I suspect this is due to the specialization that Wordpress offers as a blogging platform. And I'm also guessing that many are choosing Wordpress for its quick and dirty ability to "get the job done" with respect to simple site development. But would also anticipate that Wordpress will start to encounter many of the challenges that TYPO3 currently faces the more that Wordpress diversifies its plugin base, as noted by Michael Keukert, here: http://www.technozid.de/2005/05/20/wordpress-and-typo3/.

TYPO3 is a broad-based CMS framework that wants to become specialized. Wordpress is a specialized CMS framework that wants to become more broad-based. In this sense, TYPO3 and Wordpress are moving toward one another. Each have their strengths. And each have their challenges. Yet both can and should learn from one another. Perhaps some form of partnership is in order?

With respect to TYPO3 (since this has been my primary area of investment), I do hope that TYPO3 will draw significant insights from the many factors that (I suspect) have contributed to Wordpress' explosive growth:

  1. their apparent overwhelming and sustained commitment toward the enduser as layperson (not necessarily as developer);
  2. their "attitude" towards simplicity and user-friendliness;
  3. their focus on rapid deployment of the core software;
  4. an extremely lightweight codebase (1MB zip file);
  5. a high-degree of specialization of their core product (i.e., blogging platform);
  6. a low-to-minimal learning curve for the end user;

As the TYPO3 core team works diligently to refine the TYPO3 architecture with the long-awaited v5.0 release (http://typo3.org/teams/50-development/), many of the above goals are already on their radar. And I believe that a commitment to these core principles will uniquely position TYPO3 to again set the next CMS standard.

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2 Comments
#2 John Dawson wrote at 7:56 am, January 11, 2008 GMT answer homepage

Well, to quote Uncle Ben from Spiderman (2002), "With great power comes great responsibility." (In other words, with TYPO3, you undoubtedly get a product with unbelievable POWER. The flip-side, as you articulated well, is that TYPO3 also has enormous COMPLEXITY in so many areas). Some people fail to recognize that TYPO3 is a developer's tool capable of performing virtually limitless operations and configurations, yet with this comes a steep learning curve that many (including myself) have struggled for years to master, as I've climbed each curve to find many more - so yes, I feel your pain as I'm still climbing them, and working out bugs. At the same time, I have yet to find any open-source CMS capable of coming close to all that TYPO3 has to offer. Perhaps you're aware of one that you wouldn't mind mentioning. BTW, Typoscript (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TYPO3#Syntax_of_TypoScript) is not really a scripting language like PHP; rather it is more of a configuration hierarchy, which simply enables you to construct or modify complex object tree structures with ease. Once you understand this, it makes it much easier to navigate the object library and extension repository.

#1 James Brown wrote at 1:16 am, January 11, 2008 GMT answer homepage

I have not used Wordpress, so can not comment on its versatility.

I have however used Typo3, for the last 3 months, and its as ambitious as its versatile.

Its modularity and managing of content is admirable.

The biggest let down for TYPO3 is often its poor documentation, especially for its extensions. It also has very poor cross-referencing of what extensions work well together, and those that absolutely conflict, and the diverse effects if you combine them.

The result is that you could have worked on a development site for days maybe weeks, then you install an extension that may over-write another's table extensions or configurations, and hey presto, you've just crapped your installation. There are no clear definitions on path-of-recovery, you just have to ad-hoc it, and that is if you get lucky and spot the catastrophe once its happened, and try and reverse its effects, like un-installing the last action, or disabling the last install.

If you dont catch it in time, you are snookered, and unless you know enough of the TYPO3 core system, you are buggered, and at worst, you are unable even to get any pages started,and you are left guessing where to start trouble-shooting. Often you feel it easier to start re-installing the typo3 rather than go through the painful trouble-shooting without any manuals on what to look for.

These are sore points for TYPO3, which otherwise has some very good ideas and very high ambitions. If these were to be resolved, TYPO3 would be an un-beatable product, without competition for sure.

The last one sore point is the scripting language < typoscript > that it uses. Why they chose to use a javascript like kind of programme to do what should have been mandane chores, I dont know.

But on top of learning what is clearly a complex framework, that TYPO3 is, then having to learn a new scripting language, really sucks.

Why did they not keep things in the universal arena, everyone knows PHP and the syntax of C/C++, why throw a spanner in the works. Are you playing the Microsoft game, that of proprietary stuff, the very thing Microsoft set out to destroy, only to regurgitate it as vomit....

Man, get you acts together. I hope Typo3 V5 has it sussed!!!!!!

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