A week or so ago, I switched over my blogging/publishing platform from Movable Type to WordPress. I had accidentally deleted my MT blog, and since I had WordPress sitting around on my server anyway (I had installed it earlier to fiddle around with it), I decided to just bite the bullet and switch on over. This is not to say I dislike MT — in fact, I owe much of my web development skills to it, and I still use it for a couple of other blogs — I just felt like I should give WordPress a shot. Especially since the lead dev is my friend and all.
I must admit that the move was much easier than expected. Everything from blog installation to entry imports took about ten minutes tops. After that, it was a matter of customization. Since WordPress publishes instantly with no rebuilding, even the customization process flew by (I was especially impressed with how easy it was to change the structure of the permalinks). I was used to fiddling with templates via MT’s web interface, but with WordPress, I found it easier to edit the templates directly via a text editor and a SFTP client (I’m quite used to hand-coding, so this was great for me). There was a bit of a learning curve though, but it wasn’t too bad. I went through all the different tabs and settings, asked questions on the support forum, and generally learned through trial and error. I thought my lack of PHP knowledge would cripple me, but that was not the case. I didn’t need to know that much PHP at all — the instructions on the forums as well as the WordPress Wiki helped a lot in this regard. There’s also a lot to WordPress that’s very intuitive, such as its built-in links manager that rivals Blogrolling in its ease of use (You can even import your Blogrolling OPML file into the WordPress link manager if you want).
Overall, the move was relatively pain-free. Sure I had to adapt to a new way of doing things, but it didn’t take that long, and I actually prefer it this way. It’s just plain faster and more intuitive to handle. I haven’t run into any problems yet, but I’ll be sure to note any bugs I can find later on. Meanwhile, I’m knee-deep in WP love.
PS. I recognize the newer version of MT supports dynamic publishing as well, but as I’ve had no experience with that, I can’t speak for its speed.
