I looked at some of the leaked source code and my god the code smells are so rotten its like they had a dead horse in the back for a while and its developed a stank like an Eric Andre skit.

It increasingly looks like nobody would maintain this bundle of wax besides under-experienced juniors who threw themselves at it, and apparently after moot sold it, it was never touched. It runs on an extremely old version of FreeBSD and PHP.

The fact this happened now as opposed to any time in the past decade is, I have no words.

I mean, the source code looks a lot cleaner than WordPress, which is an incredibly sad statement.

Kill WordPress now.

Really though, it doesn’t.

Github -> WordPress

Github -> 4chan

I absolutely hate the way 4chan formats their HTML + PHP intermingling in views. That’s not to say WordPress doesn’t do this as well, but oh man in a much better, cleaner, and more sparingly way. The 4chan imageboard view Github -> 4chan is absolute chaos. Why this wasn’t rewritten is beyond me. That’s just the first thing I see as I peruse the source, I can’t imagine it gets much better from here.

but oh man in a much better, cleaner, and more sparingly way

I don’t think we’re looking at the same source code. The first thing I see in wp-activate.php:

function wpmu_activate_stylesheet() { ?> <style type="text/css"> .wp-activate-container { width: 90%; margin: 0 auto; } .wp-activate-container form { margin-top: 2em; } #submit, #key { width: 100%; font-size: 24px; box-sizing: border-box; } #language { margin-top: 0.5em; } .wp-activate-container .error { background: #f66; color: #333; } span.h3 { padding: 0 8px; font-size: 1.3em; font-weight: 600; } </style> <?php }

This isn’t better nor cleaner. This is a disaster. A function that stops PHP execution halfway-through, outputs some text and then restarts PHP execution? Hell, I’ve been in the PHP ecosystem for over a decade now and I didn’t even know this was possible and I wish that knowledge was still hidden from me.

Maybe I was wrong by saying that the 4chan source code is better than wordpress, fair. Maybe I should just say both are abominations, I will not judge which one is better and both should be discarded and forgotten.

I completely disagree.

Intermingling PHP and HTML is one of PHP strengths. The processing/executing difference you’re describing is almost always negligible due to how PHP is optimized (specifically for this kind of thing).

Seriously, compare this to the 4chan image board view linked above, we really aren’t looking at the same source code. In comparison, this is blocked, purposeful, together. It’s a single CSS block output all at once. On the otherhand, in the linked 4chan discussion board PHP file, it echos as strings, broken up by multiple conditionals, and difficult from an IDE perspective to tell where a block starts and where it ends (again due to it being echo’d in strings, and broken by conditionals). Trying to modify this blocked CSS is going to be wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy easier than trying to modify a bunch of printed HTML strings broken up by multiple nested conditionals. Plus it’s just straight-up easier to read and straight-forward to understand what the function does right away.

I can’t think of a single system that doesn’t “stop PHP executing” at some point to output HTML in some way. Maybe an app that dynamically pulls it’s views in through JS I guess.

Intermingling PHP and HTML is one of PHP strengths

Eeeh, no. It’s a bad practice in 2025. That was a good thing a decade ago.

Trying to modify this blocked CSS is going to be wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy easier than trying to modify a bunch of printed HTML strings broken up by multiple nested conditionals. Plus it’s just straight-up easier to read and straight-forward to understand what the function does right away.

True. But I was just looking at the source code of wordpress for 30 seconds. I could probably find worse.

To harp on this even more, one of the benefits of blocking HTML in this way is IDE highlighting.

Which isn’t a problem if you use a template engine - as you should in modern applications.

I can’t think of a single system that doesn’t “stop PHP executing” at some point to output HTML in some way.

Not a single modern system does that. It’s terrible practice and won’t even pass automated code reviews with sane settings.