Luthiery Laboratories

WordPress has always made a mess of images, but the new version is worse than I have ever seen. The server is polluted with gigs of unused crap that WP automatically generated and discarded. Yet at the same time, there are piles of broken image links. What the hell is this "smart" system doing?

I'm using two plugins to find and fix the problems, and get rid of the garbage. The first is Broken Link Checker, which runs in the background and reports all of WordPress' self-inflicted injuries. The second is Regenerate Thumbnails, which regenerates thumbnails ( surprise surprise. ) It can also clear out all the unused auto-generated junk. I've been running them alternately and fixing the problems. Each 4-hour cycle seems to reveal new problems. Fortunately, they can both run in the background, I just have to be careful not to close the browser window.

In engineering, you get the basics right, and then you work on the frills. Computer programmers seem to be taught the opposite. WordPress is a gigantic mess, written by some very highly 'educated' programmers, no doubt.

This image situation is ridiculous. This is a stone I wish I'd never looked under. I keep uncovering more and more errors. WordPress does a horrific job of managing media. If I don't get to the end of this soon, I'm just going to give up.

Alas, the reason I use WordPress is that it is the devil I know. No other web publishing system I've looked at is any better. The problem is the authors. Most computer programmers are not nearly as good as they think they are, and the ones who think they're really great, they're the worst of all.

The one thing they don't teach in computer science degrees is SIMPLICITY. They teach the opposite in fact. Most people come out of college with so much crap in their heads that they never get over it.