Help wrapping my brain around frameworks

  • thisismyalias

    (@thisismyalias)


    11 years, 7 months ago

    I’m new and I’m trying to wrap my brain around frameworks. I read how wonderful they are (particularly for developers) and I understand why; however, I can’t differentiate how they are different from themes that have a lot of built in features (and which people appear to warn against those).

    A custom theme with many additions and programmed settings is often said to be bad. One reason is security, but another popular reason is that you can’t change themes without possibly breaking your site. My understanding of frameworks is that they also have built in features (e.g. custom post types, templates) that prevent you from switching to an entirely new framework or non-framework theme. The only differentiation that I see is that one can switch between themes within the framework, so there is easier flexibility on the design side.

    Perhaps frameworks are better programmed, and less server intensive than a bunch of plugins, but to me it appears that you can accomplish a lot of a framework’s features with plugins. I’m not saying that’s a better or more efficient method though.

    I see benefits of a framework, but it looks like you have to live within the confines of the framework forever. In the end, to me, a framework looks like a kind of fork of WordPress. It’s still dependent on the base of WordPress, but it creates a unique version of WordPress.

    I’m not a developer, and so maybe that’s the missing perspective, but as a guy that likes flexibility, it’s more appealing to use a starter theme, plugins, and customization. Am I totally missing the point?

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Craig Ralston

    (@craig-ralston)

    11 years, 7 months ago

    I like the way StudioPress describes their Genesis framework:

    WordPress is your cars engine.

    Genesis Framework is the body of the car.

    The child theme is the cars paint job.

    Also, both the framework and WordPress core update independently so it’s not accurate to say a framework is a “fork of WordPress”. It is normally just unstyled markup and layouts to give you a base to begin developing your custom child theme.

    Evan Herman

    (@eherman24)

    11 years, 7 months ago

    I tend to stay away from frameworks as it takes a bit of an initial investment to understanding. Each framework is constructed differently than the next, so therefore you need to learn to ins and outs of each new framework you use.

    That being said, I prefer starter themes to work from. Not only are they less bloated and allow you greater control of what goes into the theme, but they are generally constructed using WordPress best practices, so there is no steep learning curve or custom functions to learn. Everything is straight out of core/the codex.

    Personally, I enjoy Bones as a starter theme. If you’d like to take advantage of bootstrap, I’d recommend Brew as it’s been fairly decent for what I’ve used it for.

    Bones : http://themble.com/bones/
    Brew : https://github.com/slightlyoffbeat/brew

    Thread Starter thisismyalias

    (@thisismyalias)

    11 years, 7 months ago

    Thanks for the comments. I’ve read Genesis’s analogy, but it doesn’t help explain the reason for going with a framework vs. a well designed theme.

    The initial investment into a framework, plus how you are ultimately tied to it just like an individual theme (although you have more design flexibility than you have with a single theme) makes me question how appealing they are.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

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