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#13 2015-06-24 14:54:09

hcgtv
Plugin Author
From: Key Largo, Florida
Registered: 2005-11-29
Posts: 2,722
Website

Re: Textpattern vs WordPress Based on the Real Using Experience

gaekwad wrote #291967:

I wish. I wish. I wish.

I took an almost 4 year break from the day to day, because I too had the same feelings you eloquently express. If you go back 10 years and trace our involvement, there’s ebbs and flows, good times and WTF times.

My biggest issue has always been the lack of communication, the one or two sentence responses from those on the trigger when you asked a “Where are we heading?”, or “How about we implement this?” forum type question.

How many times have I asked how to get more involved – “Go commit code, we’ll think about”, is the response – time marches on, years go by, you’re right, crickets.

Every popular Open Source project has departments, people in charge of this and that. This allows more growth, developers alleviated from mundane tasks, given more time to code, etc.

I want to be in charge of communication, tell the world what a great piece of software we got here. Hunt down and squash posts like the one that started this thread, eradicate the misinformation.

Bert, Chief Bullshit Wrangler ;)

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#14 2015-06-24 14:55:21

Bloke
Developer
From: Leeds, UK
Registered: 2006-01-29
Posts: 11,439
Website GitHub

Re: Textpattern vs WordPress Based on the Real Using Experience

gaekwad wrote #291967:

WordPress powers approximately 1 in 4 websites. I’ve seen stats to say that it accounts for 3 out of every 5 websites where the CMS is known.

Somebody’s counting but I don’t know how they come up with those figures: <meta name="generator"...>? Accessing /textpattern assuming someone hasn’t renamed it in a fit of security-through-obscurity? Visiting /rss and scraping the content? A combination of the above or some other signal? Who knows.

Seems a bit low to me given the number of sites I personally know about, but maybe (as I said to Adi who dug up the above link), if that’s the extent of its use then I (for one) need to do less procrastinating and more… something else, to further Textpattern’s cause.

For me, it’s as much about the bytes in a file as the people involved.

Despite what my plugins look like, I’ve always been an advocate of small is beautiful. That goes back to my Spectrum and Amiga programming days when you had to squeeze every ounce of power out of tape or an 880 KB floppy disk respectively, and do amazing things in 128-512 KB (yes, KB) of RAM.

For me, the more important metric is how we’re comparing to ourselves with each version. In 4.6 that’s not promising right now. I refuse to believe that is the best we can do. That level of performance is unacceptable to me, as both a user and a developer and I shall be doing everything I can to make the 4.6 branch and beyond a worthy series. My mantra is there’s always a better way and everything — everything — I do starts there.

But as Pete says, it’s a lonely road without the support of every community member in whatever capacity you can offer. Heck, it took Bert’s resurfacing after a four-year hiaitus to kick me into some kind of gear regarding themes. That’s a good thing: it’s about ten years overdue. The debate on the forum over features in recent days is what drives me to do what I do in what limited time I have, so thank you everyone who has been involved. I’ve said it time and again, the people here are what make Textpattern more than just software and it’s why I love contributing.

I wish there was a project manager and that they were more visible.

Want a job? :-) I’m serious…


The smd plugin menagerie — for when you need one more gribble of power from Textpattern. Bleeding-edge code available on GitHub.

Txp Builders – finely-crafted code, design and Txp

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#15 2015-06-24 15:01:31

gaekwad
Server grease monkey
From: People's Republic of Cornwall
Registered: 2005-11-19
Posts: 4,242
GitHub

Re: Textpattern vs WordPress Based on the Real Using Experience

hcgtv wrote #291975:

How many times have I asked how to get more involved – “Go commit code, we’ll think about”, is the response – time marches on, years go by, you’re right, crickets.

Credit where it’s due, though – the switch to GitHub has opened up the commit process up significantly, especially since now even non-developers like me can poke around and make changes. I had a 6-month tenure on cdnjs to get to grips with git in a real-world situation, and that helped with understanding how it all plugs together.

Bert, Chief Bullshit Wrangler ;)

You should team up with Destry, you’d be formidable.

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#16 2015-06-24 15:18:38

gaekwad
Server grease monkey
From: People's Republic of Cornwall
Registered: 2005-11-19
Posts: 4,242
GitHub

Re: Textpattern vs WordPress Based on the Real Using Experience

Bloke wrote #291976:

Seems a bit low to me given the number of sites I personally know about, but maybe (as I said to Adi who dug up the above link), if that’s the extent of its use then I (for one) need to do less procrastinating and more… something else, to further Textpattern’s cause.

Textpattern ≠ Stef Dawson. Textpattern ≠ Robert, Stef, Phil and Jukka. Textpattern is you four, the moderators, the community, the weight loss spammers and everyone outside of here that uses and abuses Textpattern on their sites.

Case in point: let’s assume the 4.6 roadmap is mostly accurate – as I write this, there are 41 open issues and 60 closed issues. That’s almost two thirds of the way there, right? Some housekeeping on the issues could probably close a few more to make it more than two thirds of the way to release.

I understand you’ve had some iterations of unlimited custom fields code that weren’t working as well as they could, so were pulled. That’s understandable – but here’s the thing: I haven’t see any code that you’ve done. Maybe I’m not in the right club for it, but I would think posting some code here or on a branch with a request for comment might get some equally smart people looking at it. I know ruud, etc and some other non-developer minds have insightful feedback on many things code-wise. Hell, if it doesn’t work well enough, just etc_query All The Things and have done.

Despite what my plugins look like, I’ve always been an advocate of small is beautiful.

And that’s totally fine, and FWIW I agree, but this Wordpress comparison is nonsensical at the present time.

According to w3techs, there’s a gradual decline in Textpattern’s use and WordPress use is gradually increasing – no surprise with the latter. I want that first graph to level off, then tick up again.

For me, the more important metric is how we’re comparing to ourselves with each version.

This.

Want a job? :-) I’m serious…

Let’s talk offline. I’ll email you.

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#17 2015-06-24 15:59:46

Bloke
Developer
From: Leeds, UK
Registered: 2006-01-29
Posts: 11,439
Website GitHub

Re: Textpattern vs WordPress Based on the Real Using Experience

gaekwad wrote #291987:

I haven’t see any code that you’ve done.

No, mea culpa. I have the old version still in a local repo somewhere which I’m cherry picking into the new one. Suppose I could incrementally commit to that and add it as a branch to master, I just wanted to get it into something that looked halfway decent and looked like it might work before leading everyone up the wrong path and having to scrap tonnes of code.

But maybe just publishing what I have so far, its many warts and all, is the best approach. Lemme get it in a state that at least has the previous iteration mostly in place (a few days I would think) and I’ll make it public.


The smd plugin menagerie — for when you need one more gribble of power from Textpattern. Bleeding-edge code available on GitHub.

Txp Builders – finely-crafted code, design and Txp

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#18 2015-06-24 16:11:46

gaekwad
Server grease monkey
From: People's Republic of Cornwall
Registered: 2005-11-19
Posts: 4,242
GitHub

Re: Textpattern vs WordPress Based on the Real Using Experience

Bloke wrote #291991:

I just wanted to get it into something that looked halfway decent and looked like it might work before leading everyone up the wrong path and having to scrap tonnes of code.

Perfection is overrated. It’s taken me a couple of decades to figure that out, trust me. You’re an island if you chew away on code in your surroundings, but I’m certain that people will be able to comment on your code and suggest alterations if it’s viewable somewhere.

But maybe just publishing what I have so far, its many warts and all, is the best approach. Lemme get it in a state that at least has the previous iteration mostly in place (a few days I would think) and I’ll make it public.

Excellent. Thank you.

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#19 2015-06-25 01:44:12

hcgtv
Plugin Author
From: Key Largo, Florida
Registered: 2005-11-29
Posts: 2,722
Website

Re: Textpattern vs WordPress Based on the Real Using Experience

Disabled the Zend OpCache that is installed by default on PHP 5.6 on Debian “Jessie”.

I have two words, holy sh*t.

Textpattern 4.5.7

bert@jessie:~$ ab -n 100 -c 10 http://jessie/zendstudio/textpattern/
Document Path:          /zendstudio/textpattern/
Document Length:        10017 bytes
Concurrency Level:      10
Time taken for tests:   5.882 seconds
Complete requests:      100
Failed requests:        0
Total transferred:      1031300 bytes
HTML transferred:       1001700 bytes
Requests per second:    17.00 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request:       588.228 [ms] (mean)
Time per request:       58.823 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate:          171.21 [Kbytes/sec] received
Connection Times (ms)
              min  mean[+/-sd] median   max
Connect:        0    3  10.8      0      57
Processing:   267  575 276.6    502    1709
Waiting:      260  536 272.8    466    1667
Total:        267  578 275.9    504    1709
Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
  50%    504
  66%    531
  75%    549
  80%    559
  90%    659
  95%   1359
  98%   1707
  99%   1709
 100%   1709 (longest request)

WordPress 4.2.2

bert@jessie:~$ ab -n 100 -c 10 http://jessie/zendstudio/wordpress/
Document Path:          /zendstudio/wordpress/
Document Length:        9148 bytes
Concurrency Level:      10
Time taken for tests:   31.366 seconds
Complete requests:      100
Failed requests:        0
Total transferred:      943200 bytes
HTML transferred:       914800 bytes
Requests per second:    3.19 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request:       3136.634 [ms] (mean)
Time per request:       313.663 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate:          29.37 [Kbytes/sec] received
Connection Times (ms)
              min  mean[+/-sd] median   max
Connect:        0    4  14.6      0      73
Processing:  1014 3078 1406.1   2450    6927
Waiting:      980 2908 1328.1   2317    6569
Total:       1014 3083 1413.0   2450    6927
Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
  50%   2450
  66%   3199
  75%   3561
  80%   4385
  90%   5347
  95%   6593
  98%   6901
  99%   6927
 100%   6927 (longest request)

The OpCache was made for projects like WordPress:


			OpCache on	OpCache off
Textpattern 4.5.7	1.817 seconds	5.882 seconds
WordPress 4.2.2		6.621 seconds	31.366 seconds

bert@jessie:~$

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#20 2015-06-25 08:32:22

gaekwad
Server grease monkey
From: People's Republic of Cornwall
Registered: 2005-11-19
Posts: 4,242
GitHub

Re: Textpattern vs WordPress Based on the Real Using Experience

Bert, what PHP are you running on that testbed? Does the PHP 5.5+ OpCache give similar results?

Edit: ignore that, saw your sig.

(Asking for a friend)

Last edited by gaekwad (2015-06-25 12:13:58)

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#21 2015-06-25 09:00:15

hcgtv
Plugin Author
From: Key Largo, Florida
Registered: 2005-11-29
Posts: 2,722
Website

Re: Textpattern vs WordPress Based on the Real Using Experience

Latest results, increased the RAM to 3GB in VirtualBox.

Debian GNU/Linux 8.1 "jessie" - Apache 2.4.10 - MySQL 5.5.43 - PHP 5.6.9 - VM RAM 3GB

Textpattern 4.5.7

bert@jessie:~$ ab -n 100 -c 10 http://jessie/zendstudio/textpattern/
Document Length:        10017 bytes
Concurrency Level:      10
Time taken for tests:   4.867 seconds
Complete requests:      100
Failed requests:        0
Total transferred:      1031300 bytes
HTML transferred:       1001700 bytes
Requests per second:    20.55 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request:       486.675 [ms] (mean)
Time per request:       48.668 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate:          206.94 [Kbytes/sec] received
Connection Times (ms)
              min  mean[+/-sd] median   max
Connect:        0    4  13.2      0      68
Processing:   298  460 150.6    420    1160
Waiting:      277  435 150.6    391    1141
Total:        298  464 151.6    422    1160
Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
  50%    422
  66%    449
  75%    459
  80%    467
  90%    597
  95%    712
  98%   1146
  99%   1160
 100%   1160 (longest request)

Zend OPcache

Document Length:        10017 bytes
Concurrency Level:      10
Time taken for tests:   1.696 seconds
Complete requests:      100
Failed requests:        0
Total transferred:      1031300 bytes
HTML transferred:       1001700 bytes
Requests per second:    58.98 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request:       169.554 [ms] (mean)
Time per request:       16.955 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate:          593.99 [Kbytes/sec] received
Connection Times (ms)
              min  mean[+/-sd] median   max
Connect:        0    5  15.4      0      72
Processing:    87  161  60.8    150     663
Waiting:       81  146  60.5    134     650
Total:         87  166  62.6    157     663
Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
  50%    157
  66%    177
  75%    186
  80%    189
  90%    219
  95%    231
  98%    280
  99%    663
 100%    663 (longest request)

WordPress 4.2.2

bert@jessie:~$ ab -n 100 -c 10 http://jessie/zendstudio/wordpress/
Document Length:        9148 bytes
Concurrency Level:      10
Time taken for tests:   20.695 seconds
Complete requests:      100
Failed requests:        0
Total transferred:      943200 bytes
HTML transferred:       914800 bytes
Requests per second:    4.83 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request:       2069.541 [ms] (mean)
Time per request:       206.954 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate:          44.51 [Kbytes/sec] received
Connection Times (ms)
              min  mean[+/-sd] median   max
Connect:        0    3  10.7      0      55
Processing:  1600 2058 461.3   1969    3605
Waiting:     1585 1937 447.6   1856    3391
Total:       1600 2062 464.0   1969    3605
Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
  50%   1969
  66%   2053
  75%   2081
  80%   2099
  90%   3082
  95%   3436
  98%   3520
  99%   3605
 100%   3605 (longest request)

Zend OPcache

Document Length:        9148 bytes
Concurrency Level:      10
Time taken for tests:   6.539 seconds
Complete requests:      100
Failed requests:        0
Total transferred:      943200 bytes
HTML transferred:       914800 bytes
Requests per second:    15.29 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request:       653.851 [ms] (mean)
Time per request:       65.385 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate:          140.87 [Kbytes/sec] received
Connection Times (ms)
              min  mean[+/-sd] median   max
Connect:        0    4  12.6      0      66
Processing:   239  638 158.5    609    1430
Waiting:      221  563 150.4    533    1318
Total:        239  641 158.7    612    1430
Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
  50%    612
  66%    660
  75%    689
  80%    702
  90%    765
  95%    843
  98%   1349
  99%   1430
 100%   1430 (longest request)

Drumroll, hit the lights.

bert@jessie:~$ ab -n 100 -c 10		OPcache on		OPcache off
Textpattern 4.5.7			1.696 seconds		4.867 seconds
WordPress 4.2.2				6.539 seconds		20.695 seconds

The tests were run multiple times, giving the Apache server ample time to cache the PHP opcode.

bert@jessie:~$

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#22 2015-07-05 23:45:13

hcgtv
Plugin Author
From: Key Largo, Florida
Registered: 2005-11-29
Posts: 2,722
Website

Re: Textpattern vs WordPress Based on the Real Using Experience

Here’s another observation, fits in nicely with all the benchmarks.

On my local server, I have plain vanilla installs of Textpattern 4.5.7 and WordPress 4.2.2.

The new WordPress default Theme is light, there’s not much to it if you’ve seen it, while Phil’s default theme has a much better look and has more doodads, you know those things you click.

While getting familiar with all the bells and whistles in Firefox Developer Edition, I started playing with Network. This shows all the network activity coming from the page you’re on, the files it retrieved, from where, time in milliseconds, really cool.

So I fired up Textpattern 4.5.7 – 3 requests, 38.94KB, 0.20s time to render page.
Then it was WordPress 4.2.2 – 9 requests, 254.81KB, 0.56s time to render page

So out the starting gate, with the simplest page imaginable, WordPress lags behind.

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#23 2015-07-06 17:13:19

Destry
Member
From: Haut-Rhin
Registered: 2004-08-04
Posts: 4,909
Website

Re: Textpattern vs WordPress Based on the Real Using Experience

michaelkpate wrote #291843:

That barely sounds like English.

lol. Yep. Many of the questionable content funnel schemes, in English, are actually done by people who have neither writing nor native-English skills.

That’s not to say all native-English speakers posing as writers are any better. You might enjoy this as much as I did, B2B Content Marketing Has a Huge Problem, which is, of course, a good piece of content marketing. ;)

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#24 2015-07-06 17:16:18

gaekwad
Server grease monkey
From: People's Republic of Cornwall
Registered: 2005-11-19
Posts: 4,242
GitHub

Re: Textpattern vs WordPress Based on the Real Using Experience

Destry wrote #292665:

Many of the questionable content funnel schemes, in English, are actually done by people who have neither writing nor native-English skills.

I read an interesting thing a while ago about wording of adult ad creative – generally speaking, the writing style used, especially in adult ads, deliberately includes grammatical errors and spelling mistakes so that smart folks will ignore them; the less-than-smart demographic is the one they’re aiming for.

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