New MODX Book: MODX and Wordpress side by side

This is the latest book: http://leanpub.com/modx-vs-wordpress/c/Js19l9YScKrd

For a limited time, it's 20% off for MODX forum dwellers!

Congratulations Everett! It looks really good. Is there just the one chapter? If there are more, you might want to have the sample include a full TOC, or include a chapter list on the web page (or both).

Thanks Bob. It's 200 pages, 21 chapters -- the page does include the chapter list if you scroll down. I'm not sure how to include the full TOC in the sample... I'll have to look into that...

Now that's an interesting concept. Got it, am reading it.

I released an updated version thanks to your feedback!

I guess the issue with hyphens is a common one -- LeanPub guesses the encoding incorrectly, but as soon as you specify UTF8, the problem seems to have cleared up.

Likewise, the discussion on whether or not to include the complete table of contents in the sample preview has been kicked around for a long time... in the meantime, the low-brow solution seems to work: include a manually written list of contents.

Next time will be easier...

Very easy-reading and understandable. And I've never dealt with WordPress, although its architectural principles sound a lot like Vanilla.

I've dealt with WordPress, and I never want to do it again.

I think Everett's book will attract a lot of frustrated WP users to MODX.

Hi Bob!

Can you please explain shortly why do you dislike WP?
From time to time I throw a look to their themes and backend panel and I find them attractive
From end-user point of wiew not as a developer.

Thank you!

if your using it for a blog, why dont you use the article add-on for modx?

wordpress is a horrible CMS system, simply because:

it seems to be a cms that is prone to hacking
its very slow at loading pages, adds in tons of lines of code to produce a simple output
there are many more reasons

I can weigh in here. I hate WordPress because:

• There are no application logs, so it's very difficult to debug
• The architecture is nearly entirely event-driven, so collisions between plugins and themes are common and nearly impossible to detect (because there are no logs)
• The code is very messy and primitive. It relies heavily on global variables. It becomes even more difficult to debug and more prone to hacking
• Unlike nearly every other app/CMS I've seen, it does not let you specify a path and URL in a configuration file, so migrating it between servers is problematic and usually time-intensive
• The themes are really full-blown PHP layers, so they can have all the problems of bad code everywhere including crashing the application and crashing
• Customizations become increasingly difficult the more you try to deviate from what WP has built in.
• It is an inefficient app -- it takes thousands of operations and about twice the time to complete the same task MODX could complete in a fraction of the time using a fraction of the operations.

But probably the thing that annoys me most about WordPress is that it's soooo popular and so many people think that the way that it does things is "normal" or even "the correct way". It is not. I've had to fix so many disasters created by WordPress "developers" who created "solutions" that were every bit as problematic as the WP core. In short, WP has educated a whole group of developers with bad examples and shown them instead what not to do. WP has trained users that "there's a plugin that fixes every problem" when the reality of development is far more complicated -- WP users tend to completely be ignorant about the underlying problems, and that becomes a really difficult discussion when you have to talk with your client about how and why the thing they fell in love with (WP's simplicity) is only one part of the app that is causing many other problems preventing their site from scaling.

Lots more detailed info in my book, but that's the nutshell. https://leanpub.com/modx-vs-wordpress