As I built the custom theme for Joomla, there were some fun things I had to struggle with in order to achieve something that would be very simple in Wordpress. Case in point, Joomla’s Blocks. This in itself just didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. These blocks basically give you the ability to point your different pieces of content or navigation to different ‘blocks’ on the joomla layout. The problem is, figuring out what block goes where and when it’s calling what, and when I don’t want or need that particular block what to do to fix that. Sound confusing? It was.

I’m accustomed to the methodology of K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid), and I’m also accustomed to Wordpress, whose administrator area boasts a clean elegant design that can cater to anyone, whether they are just starting out, or building full blown websites.

From this first experience, I’m still much more in favor of Wordpress. In the end I found Joomla lacking in many areas, one more of which I’ll mention was their community.

In open source development this is pretty much the staple that will keep people happy and continue to develop a great product. I couldn’t find nearly the documentation or community development I have with Wordpress.

Thanks for reading, hopefully it wasn’t too much of a rant, just my personal findings.

Some of the articles that I thought were particularly useful were:

http://www.goodwebpractices.com/other/wordpress-vs-joomla-vs-drupal.html

http://www.playingwithwire.com/2009/03/open-source-and-usability-joomla-vs-wordpress/

http://spyrestudios.com/free-content-management-systems/

http://www.netmag.co.uk/zine/discover-culture/choose-the-best-free-cms

When the project is completed I will make a second post on how it was and some personal comparisons and even preferences.

Chow!