Craft: Public beta started
After 27 months and more than 12,500 hours of work, Craft is finally in public beta. Since late 2012, a small group of testers has been using the closed beta, but now everyone can try it.
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Today’s the day: After 27 months of about 12,500 total man hours, 3,483 commits, three product strategies, 31 redesigns, 7 major architecture shifts, countless code refactors, one name change, and approximately 327 liters of consumed Jameson, it is my very great pleasure to introduce you to Craft.
Why the name change?
Craft used to be called Blocks. Part of the reason for the name change was legal, but there was a bigger reason: the old name just didn't fit anymore.
Blocks began as a small CMS back in 2011. Pixel & Tonic thought it would take six months to finish. Then another six months passed, and then another, and they realized it was turning into something much bigger. What started as a simple side project had become something far more ambitious.
The name "Blocks" didn't reflect that, and it didn't reflect the audience they wished to reach either. Craft is built for people who take their craft seriously, developers who write every HTML tag by hand and have no interest in pre-made themes. That philosophy eventually gave the CMS its name.
First impressions
This release is personal for me. I built my first WordPress site in 2005 and loved it right away. For years, WordPress was my go-to. In 2007, I found ExpressionEngine, which also became a favorite, even though I didn't get to use it on as many client projects as I wanted.
2013 might be another turning point for me. Early impressions of Craft are promising, and the public beta is the first real chance to see whether it holds up on an actual project.
Still, there are a few things missing before I'd use Craft for client projects. The biggest gap is the missing matrix functionality. Pixel & Tonic's Matrix plugin for ExpressionEngine is one of their best features, so it's surprising it isn't in Craft yet. Hopefully it's on the roadmap.
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