I’ve been ruminating for awhile, years really, about how important programmers are to the Web. This thought on the blog software WordPress is part of an overall manifesto encouraging coders to be People’s Programmers. If you’d like to see this manifesto make its way to the masses, consider voting for it here.
The stuff that People’s Programmers put out gives power to non-technical people. The software behind Wikipedia has helped thousands of scholars share their knowledge. WordPress has done the same by making it pretty easy to set up a blog. More voices is better than fewer voices.
WordPress was hardly the first blogging software. Blogger and Moveable Type have been around nearly a decade. When I first starting writing about People’s Programmers, back in 2001, I even mentioned some other software, GreyMatter, that has now been forgotten by most.
WordPress is special in that, along with empowering the non-technical, it also teaches some to be technical. WordPress creates programmers. Beyond that, it creates People’s Programmers.
Many would never have a blog if WordPress didn’t exist. A few of those would never have tried to program if they hadn’t used WordPress. With Plugins, Themes, and Widgets, WordPress offers many ways to hack away at your blog software. People’s Programmers have been born from a program written by People’s Programmers. The stuff the plugin-makers write inspires others to learn a little PHP.
To put it in slightly technical terms, WordPress has created recursive People’s Programmers. If the infinite loop of helping others to inspire others to help others continues, we’ll all be better for it.
Help me keep the cycle going by encouraging the technical to Be People’s Programmers.
Hi Adam,
While I use Typepad as a platform, I did find using it became pretty easy because I knew enough about forums (the formats are surprisingly similar in some ways). It took me about 1-2 hours to learn how to post, a little bit longer to learn how to embed/modify html into my blog.
If there’s anything holding blogging back, I think that people think that it is far more complicated than it really is. Most items, including new widgets, are simply a click or two away because of the connected web.
Had a snicker at seeing GreyMatter listed 🙂
Damon–People’s Programmers are the ones to make it even easier!
Jacob–Kudos for remembering GreyMatter.