WordPress is a CMS (Content Management System). In the late 90’s, when I first began building websites, you used to have to create a separate page for every page on your site. One would think that that follows a certain logic. But if you consider this further there are many elements on each page that repeat themselves over and over again in a site: the header, the menu, the footer, etc, etc, etc… Why should web developers waste time rebuilding those elements for each page, and why should companies have to pay for that time?

When databases came into the picture building websites got much easier. You could store the content that changed regularly in the database, and build a template that had all the recurring elements inside. Each page that loaded got its recurring elements loaded as well as the unique content was pulled in from the database. Thus was born the CMS.

Many web development companies came and built their own content management systems, which was fine. The problem was that if you wanted to change to another web development company, you couldn’t. You needed someone who could understand what the previous company had done. And not all companies were willing to share their proprietary systems.

Thus was born the Open Source revolution – The democratization of code.

As WordPress developed, a whole community developed around it; a community of developers and designers, all using one standard – WordPress. And we all work together to develop that standard to be the best it can be.

So now, instead of having to rely on one company to develop its proprietary CMS, which costs the company time and money to develop, we can now be part of a greater community of highly skilled developers. A team that works to continuously develop its product, that they themselves use, but now have a whole team to work with. And the WordPress community holds to the standard…

CODE IS POETRY

On the bottom of every page of the WordPress.org site are those three little words. Who wouldn’t want to use a system that was built striving for that standard of quality? To contemplate every line of code, as a poet does a poem, to make sure it is performing as best it can…