I like it.
I never use it, but I like it.
I delete it, but I like it.
It’s not professional, it’s not beautiful, and it’s not something that makes WordPress look grown up.
And I think needs to stay in the core download of WordPress.
Let me tell you a story of you. Let me remind you of yourself. Not the you of today who knows all amazing things. Remember the you who was young and inventive but inexperienced. The you who knew how to throw a football but couldn’t throw a spiral. Or you knew how to drive a car and not stick shift. The you who delighted when you learned all those things, like a child with a new toy.
That you was not professional yet. That you needed an example for how to do new things. You had teachers and friends and parents who showed you the ropes.
That’s what “Hello Dolly” is. Hello Dolly is the Hello World of WordPress, and it makes a plugin suddenly seem like a non-insurmountable task. We can all look at that one file and see either inspiration for code we can make, or a sudden lack of terror for what WordPress is. Like I tell people in training classes, WordPress is just files, folks. A plugin can be just that file. And you can take the idea and run with it. More than just a training tool, it’s the epitome of open source. It’s code, freely given, than serves as a first step for people who come to WordPress with no formal education. It’s free. It embraces the goals we want to see in open sourced code.
So it needs to stay in WordPress, because you needed it once. Does it make an annoying extra step for you to delete it when you’re installing WordPress for your clients? Maybe, but for me it makes a moment where I can look back at myself from 2009 and see how far I’ve come from the woman who was too scared to speak at a WordCamp to become a WordPress professional.
I’ll take that one extra step and never forget where I came from.
Comments
2 responses to “A Case For Hello Dolly”
Well stated. Deleting “Hello Dolly” is the first thing I do on a new install but I look at it as a part of history and history should be preserved.
I think that’s the best/only case for keeping it: it belongs there as long as there are WordPress users who have not looked at the source or written a plugin. To make it more intelligible and inviting, it could be highlighted or quietly explained a little, given more verbose comments, or maybe even a link to a tutorial.