Hi @james - You may want to split this into a new topic.
Answering to your question. Well, WordPress is a great piece of software. Even though it can be easily hated because of its codebase, one must understand where it comes from and not just criticize it with modern eyes. A lot of people have put huge amounts of effort to make it happen. It has evolved with technology and has always made a strong effort to not leave past versions behind.
What I dislike about WP, and has nothing to do with this codebase thing, is how it now isn’t really democratic. Gutenberg is amazing, but pushing it into core has been a decision made almost against the community.
Also… I don’t like the way Automattic is constantly orbiting around WP with all this Jetpack fuss and yeah, what goes on with their company and the WordPress brand in general.
I see it this way:
I will keep using WP for “fast food” websites. Just install some theme and woocommerce and yeah, have some simple thing up and running, especially to sell basic ready to use ecommerce sites.
But I will use CP for serious projects with custom themes and plugins.
What I see in ClassicPress, is an opportunity to take out the ugly past that WP has kept on carrying for a while and keep it pure. WP 4.9 was excellent. No need to keep adding irrelevant stuff to it. Better to clean, fix and optmize it.
I still have some doubts because of the intention to keep things 100% back-compat. I understand the idea of back-compat for v1 (to attract users). Pretty reasonable. Just breaking WP to make something new would lead to an empty community.
But I also see a great potential in letting go of some limits that are there just because of back-compat.
I wonder now, if it would make sense to simultaneously keep ClassicPress v1 and ClassicPress v2+ (parallel instead of linear).
Just keep v1 there (with all the back-compat changes made to v2+) and simultaneosly work on v2+ for a more disruptive version of this CMS that may have enough freedom to evolve according to the democratically voted vision of the community as a whole.
This would allow to have a pure compatible version for people who want to switch from WP without big surprises (v1), and another version for those who want to experiment with new things and don’t mind breaking compat (v2+).
Some people just don’t want to use public plugins, or very specific ones. Giving them the chance of a “cooler” CP seems legit to me. And it will attract developers who ran away from WP but like the WP way of doing things
Also, this approach would make things easier, and I am not talking about extreme changes. But about things like implementing TinyMCE 5 and others…
Just as an example, the current TinyMCE update started by @anon71687268 would require loads of additional energy just to work on compatibility. Breaking compatibility (move this change into CP 2+) would allow users to throw more new fresh energy and enthusiasm into making changes without having to carry the backcompat burden)
But yeah, I am really starting to feel some appreciation for CP and I will stay around and help.