To whomever it concerns, Let me start this not with a negative but with a positive. I love what you’re trying to do with the new WordPress default theme. New stuff is always good and whilst I may not agree with some design decisions I recognise how hard it is to please all of us grumpy WordPress peeps all the time. That being said I have just one thing I think you need to consider and to sum it up I just have to say… will someone please think of the children.
We all have to start somewhere in this crazy industry. The starting point when looking at WordPress was always the default theme. I think even now fondly of my first stumbles across the code. Whilst your old default wasn’t perfect (nothing is in this crazy world) it was a lead in and the bar was not so high that as a fledgling designer you didn’t end up crying in a corner. Things were there all in the code, you could go deeper if you wanted sure but the default theme lead you by the hand through the first pitfalls and onto standing on your own two feet. It had just the right balance of complexity to give hints to the power of WordPress whilst holding a new person’s hand.
Times change, I get that but it saddens me you seem to be forgetting one of the key benefits that your old theme had to those starting out. When you look at the new default a learner is faced with functions, clauses, loops, a whole barrage of things they won’t know. Sure, if you’ve worked with themes for a while you can handle it – heck you can even eventually find where the comment form is because it sure isn’t in comments.php. That’s not the point though the default isn’t for those that know things it never was – or at least this is the way I feel. It’s my opinion that if you know you either have a custom theme or you would go on to develop your own. Don’t get me wrong in this I love the extra functionality but does it have to be at the expense of the biggest glory that was the old default theme – the fact it brought people into our industry and gave them that initial confidence to grow into amazing theme designers.
I hope you will take this with the kind nature it’s being sent to you, I beg you to think of those starting out in the industry with this theme. Perhaps it’s an oversight you will sort before your final launch – I hope that as you’ve never let me down before with regards to recognising education of new users both front and back end. Just so we’re clear of my good intentions I won’t mention the ugly of your tab experiment in the admin menu.. ok?
All the best
Me
I understand what you are trying to say, but it seems like the default theme should be just that…the default theme. It should be a theme that contains all of the best (and most useful) features that the majority of blogs will want. The focus should be more on the end-user, not the budding theme developer. I think most (including myself) never REALLY understood theme development until we stuck our nose into the codex. Sure I pulled a few strings here and there on the default theme and made it my own (incorrectly, of course), but didn’t fully understand what was really going on until I looked elsewhere for help (the codex).
A possible way to kill two birds with one stone, would be to replace the “Classic” theme (that’s what it is called right?) with a Basic theme, that has just the bare necessities for those wanting to learn theme development. Then keep the “Default” theme for those who don’t care about theme development, but just want a fully-capable blog.
@mikemick: I like that idea but it does lead to complication which I think is the reason to remove it. I see in beta they for instance are not having any other themes it’s just 2010 that’s it. I don’t know perhaps ultimately the best ‘default’ is a skeleton and not a theme and have child themes that actually style? Just a thought but with child and parent themes could be the route.
I’m just starting to take a look at frameworks. As I just read your post and May 9 comment your suggestion immediately made me think about these frameworks.
If WordPress doesn’t want to include a default framework, maybe they can add another paragraph to Hello World! that introduces frameworks and links to the same page I did where they can be downloaded?