I heard many arguments why some PHP folks don’t like WordPress and I’ve heard counter-arguments to those reasons; but I never quite got the essence of why WordPress doesn’t get the respect it deserves from a large part of the PHP community.

Let’s go down the checklist to clarify things a bit

Hater: WordPress security sucks!

Lover: The community does an awesome job at plugging holes quickly.

Hater: It’s PHP 4!

Lover: Yes, I concede on that one, but the more WP users and developers continue pushing for a full PHP 5 core the sooner we’ll get it (maybe. some day.)

Hater: It’s just for blogs!

Lover: That’s just dumb. How long has it been since you visited the intarwebs?

Hater: It’s a little toy for people that don’t know how to code.

Lover: It can be, but it can also help you create very powerful stuff. The tools are there for you to use, and they won’t get in the way if you don’t.

So you get the picture. There are valid arguments, but the truth is some PHP developers hate WordPress because it isn’t coded like the applications they are used to working on. As easy as it is to get started coding for WordPress, for someone that is used to building sites from scratch, or even using a framework, being subjected to ‘actions’, ‘filters’, ‘The Loop‘ and other WordPress idiosyncrasies causes some discomfort.

If you are the PHP developer I describe here, don’t get offended. Give WordPress a try. Don’t just install it, but actually get your hands dirty with a theme or plugin. It’s weird at first, but once you get past the initial annoyance you’ll find an extremely powerful platform that just might be the wrench you’re missing in your toolbox.

A great place to answer your questions is the Codex, but there are a million and one resources out there. If you are in the mood for reading a book I recommend the WordPress Bible by Aaron Brazell, truly an awesome resource (which you might just end up buying.)

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The weather wasn’t on our side. For the last several days we had below freezing temperatures, and roads were covered with ice on Friday, which kept me from attending the first part of the event. Yet there were many souls braver than me that made their way to the Savannah College of Art and Design to kick off the event.

Saturday I made my way to SCAD early on (I was the fifth one to arrive) and I immediately started meeting people, right at the parking lot. That’s where I met Russel (@rfair), who told me he wanted to stream the event through USTREAM and post it on Blogger Atlanta but his laptop had bitten the dust the night before. Being the geek that I am I had mine on me, so we were able to stream many of the talks we attended.

The masses started gathering slowly but surely, and finally the opening remarks and keynote got started. Jane Wells (@janeforshort) told us “What To Expect in 2010” . There’s a lot to be excited about in the WP community, including the release of 3.0 with the much awaited “merge” with WP-MU and a lot more. She also insisted that we give back and collaborate. I couldn’t agree more and I’ll try to do better going forward.

Due to the late start there were scheduling changes and some of the speakers had to cancel their talks, but instead used their time slots to hang out at the Genius Bar and answer questions. I was a bit disappointed because I wanted to attend the talks by Dougal Campbell (@dougal) and Chris Harrison (@cdharrison) but there were still a lot of great speakers.

The first talk I attended was Ryan Imel’s (@ryanimel) “Building Sites Quickly with Parent/Child Themes” which I enjoyed a lot. There was a lot of very good material and ideas which I will be implementing very soon. Next I switched rooms to attend the development track where Chris Scott (@chrisscott) told us “You’re Doing It Wrong: How To Code Things the WordPress Way.” Kudos to Chris, who despite not feeling well, didn’t make excuses and delivered an engaging talk full of interesting tidbits. This talk was followed by Scott Clark’s (@scottclark) who not only talked about “Complex Management with the Pods CMS Framework Plugin”, but also sung a song explaining how you can do everything with Wordress (the video below is not from this event, but it’s the same song).

At this point I needed a break so I went to hang out at the Genius Bar for a bit. For the last presenter of the day I went back to the development track where Aaron Brazell (@technosailor) talked about “PHP and WordPress – Converging Communities”. Even though his talk wasn’t technical in nature, it was probably the best one I attended to. Aaron shone a light on issues that probably weren’t obvious for many of us. There is some friction between these two communities (and many others). He took the time to point out some of the possible reasons, and the effects of these problems; but instead of dishing out a list of possible solutions he opened up the conversation to the floor and created a great discussion where folks from both camps, and some that actually belong to both camps, brought up some excellent points. Unfortunately I didn’t record this session, but there was a camera present so I hope the video will be available soon. I look forward to this discussion continuing in the future and enriching our communities an helping us grow together.

To close the event, there was some sponsor swag given away with some spontaneous dancing included for good measure. Then Mark Jaquith (@markjaquith), Lead Developer for WordPress, did a Q&A session. Once it was all over a pretty sizable crowd made its way to TAP 1080 for some drinks and great conversation.

Huge thanks go to all the organizers, volunteers and sponsors and everyone else that made the event a success.

Despite all the announcements and excitement about what’s coming next, I think the best news of the day is that there’s already a date for Wordcamp Atlanta 2011. See you there!

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