Comments on: The “Frameworks” Discussion

By: Greg

Greg — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 02:48:41 +0000

I’d use one *IF* it saved me time. My experience, which if I’m picking up on Chris’s tone is pretty similar to his own, is that they are typically more time-consuming the minute you need to add something that’s not already included out of the box.

Well-written framework that stays out of my way yet adds some functionality that feels like just an incremental version of WordPress itself? I’d use that.

By: Bryan Hoffman

Bryan Hoffman — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:46:23 +0000

More love here for Hybrid. It’s unbelievable how far my WordPress knowledge has come in the last year. Hooks, actions, filters, functions.php.

Frameworks aren’t for noobs. They’re for developers and designers that want to work quickly and stay on top of the best of WordPress. They’re part of what’s making WP so great.

By: febri

febri — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 03:03:34 +0000

Best comment.

By: Irrational Dad

Irrational Dad — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 00:57:30 +0000

I’m a fan of clean and basic. I downloaded a theme-framework from this site a while back and use that when developing. It’s perfect!

By: Kiko Doran

Kiko Doran — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 23:50:39 +0000

This article, while very short, has spurred lots of super interesting conversation. I’ve started working with wordpress because of all the things I learned on CSS-Tricks. I’ve been doing this web thing for about 6 months now seriously and have just started to look at the framework options. I just joined the premium section of the Hybrid theme and have to say Justin gives great support and doesn’t make people feel stupid about all the things they don’t understand.

I honestly just thought last weekend that I wish Chris Coyier used Hybrid because I think with Justin’s framework and Chris method of teaching I could really be an expert at it. Justin does a great job of explaining things but if I could find a video that converted a PSD to WP through Hybrid, I’d be in heaven! Keep up the great work! I’m happy to be part of the wordpress community. So many web communities turn negative towards those who are less understanding…

Kiko Doran

By: Tibor

Tibor — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 21:39:26 +0000

I’ve coded several themes myself and also had something against frameworks, until I got to know them a bit better. Now I am totally convinced that a good framework is the way to go for any site: a child theme, a bit of CSS and a few hooks, and you can do anything you want.

Not to mention the fact that well maintained frameworks provide updates: custom menus from day one WP 3.0 was out, by just the click of a button. Very handy when you have a lot of sites to maintain.

I’ve tried Thematic, Hybrid and more recently Genesis and loved them all.

By: carlos correza

carlos correza — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 21:13:46 +0000

Another point that Nathan Rice didn’t mention, In the case of Genesis, new features of WordPress 3.0 were supported on the same day WP 3 was released.

You can’t imagine the learning curve non-technical writers would face trying to make the most of these new features.

For most if us, adding a line to wp-config to enable a feature is the simplest thing to do. Trust me … I’ve worked with clients who could not do this, even when they’ve got me on the phone walking them through it.

There’s more to the value of a framework than your own personal projects. If you can tell your clients “click here” as opposed to “ftp to this server, find this file, edit it and check your syntax to make sure you don’t break anything” You look like a hero.

By: carlos correza

carlos correza — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 21:05:38 +0000

Personally, between the functionality afforded by a robust framework and the intelligent placement of hooks thought said framework; I haven’t found a single instance where “doing things by hand” was faster.

I can tell you with supreme confidence that you would need a radical departure from the basic structure of a framework such as Genesis before it no longer made life easier.

Considering that in the case of Both Genesis and Thesis, plug-ins exist to address the theme hooks without editing a functions file, there is very little a framework cannot do faster and easier than hand editing.

By: Ashton Sanders

Ashton Sanders — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:52:39 +0000

But this has been a very interesting discussion. I’ll definitely have to fiddle around with a framework and see what it’s all about.

By: Ashton Sanders

Ashton Sanders — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:42:20 +0000

Yea, I think that’s the question though. Are frameworks easier than just hand coding a theme?

I haven’t tried a framework, but done a lot of hand-coding… WP functions make it so easy to do “a lot” of hand-coding in a very short time, if you can read the codex.

From what I can tell, learning a framework allows you to do some things faster, but it limits your functionality (as it can’t do everything).