In the short while since Ben has started blogging again, one of his last posts has picked up a good track of comments, which seemingly groks the issues between two of the major blog "systems": Movable Type and WordPress.

Now, guiltily, Ben is right that I have been blogging only nominally as of late. (Shame on me, but I think I'm redeeming myself as I have started up again last week after being clueless about where my round tuit had been for the last 9 months, which is the topic of my last post.) So it's fittingly coincidental that this thread comes when I'm renewing efforts to start blogging again and also to update the tools and systems.

Ben is well informed enough on user interfaces to take MT to task for their clunky user interface, although I've found the latest version of MT (version 4) is much improved. This blog is still MT 3.x, however, I have just migrated Art's blog over to MT4 (although she hasn't posted anything in about a year!). This blog post was composed with ScribeFire, a Firefox plugin, so I am dealing with a completely different user interface, which I find useful for composing off-line.

In the last two years, seeing WordPress take the blogging system lead, I've considered whether to stick with MT or make the move myself. One major consideration is that I had invested a lot of time learning and customizing my MT installations. I even started a test WordPress blog to learn about WP. I found the lack of a centralized
plugin directory for WordPress, slightly frustrating. But I'm not sticking to MT out
of inertia or sheer laziness; MT4 is actually a great product. Of course this can digress into some religious war pitting MT against WordPress, but I won't go there. With my prior "investment" - it should be
easier to edit the hacks, hard-coded links and template customizations
when I migrate to MT4 than move wholesale into WordPress, given the
seemingly scarcity of round tuits in my life. I just read
about on the upcoming 4.1 release, and I'm hoping it'll be out when I
start upgrading my own MT installation.

Personally, the licensing issue that SixApart waddled through was a
blunder on their part, which probably alienated many MT users and
developers, as Ben indicates. Although perturbed, I didn't migrate.
I give a lot of credit to the MT community, which I've found to be extremely engaged and a great
resource in developing my own sites.

In the meantime, the Tshins will blog with both MT and WP.

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