Thanks to a few WordPress plug-ins, we’ve done it. We have PhoneNews.com running on WordPress. It took 5 hours to do the job. Oh, did I mention we preserved legacy backlinks as well?
No, it isn’t online yet… we have to get the look-and-feel up, and then find a nice 48 hour period where all sleep can be abandoned…
This is not a lovefest on WordPress, nor is it really about PhoneNews.com. This post is a clear warning about Joomla: The project is running itself into the ground.
Joomla 1.5 still is a painful migration process with hundreds of bugs. In five hours, I managed to have a pure, yet massive Joomla 1.0 web site running flawlessly on WordPress. Legacy backlinks preserved, and with the new URL format too. The folks over at Joomla 1.5 have so many bugs, the testers are refusing to test it. Did I mention they’re already on Release Candidate 3, and saying there will only be one more RC build before release?
If I were leading up Joomla, I would slam on the breaks. Right now. I would refine the goals of the project down to three key goals at this point. Those would be first, stabalizing the Joomla code so that all glaring issues are fixed. Second, ensure that all Joomla sites can easily migrate from version 1.0 to 1.5. And, finally, ensure that Joomla site viewers do not notice any changes due to the migration. Bookmarks, backlinks, and all resources that were furnished by Joomla 1.0 core software, must work without the end-user needing to do anything.
It simply is not acceptable to release Joomla 1.5 without doing this. No, I don’t care if it’s free software. I don’t care if you want to hide behind an open source license and claim that’s a valid objection. Bad software will fail, and it doesn’t matter what you charge for it.
Please Joomla, even though you’ve already lost me as a supporter, don’t commit suicide in the marketplace. Right now, I’m suggesting all Joomla 1.0 web sites migrate to WordPress. It’s faster, and easier, and more backwards-compatible than Joomla 1.5. If that sounds hideous on Halloween, well, it’s no trick, and it’s no treat. Joomla 1.5, as it stands now, is a failure. Hopefully enough leaders on the team will hit the breaks and delay the release until they get back on-track.