I’ve just installed WordPress 2.8 Beta 2 on this blog to give it a try and everything seems to be working smoothly. I’ve already blogged about the features I like in WordPress 2.8 and I think this drop is going to be a winner.

The more I use WordPress, the happier I get that I’ve selected it as my platform of choice. Community support is awesome and when it comes to features, WordPress has it all that and the kitchen sink (and a stainless steel backsplash in this case too). I’ve had the opportunity to work on some Drupal and Joomla, and WordPress is by far my preferred option; possibly because most of my projects tend to be relatively small and WordPress makes them painless. I guess there’s a cyclical element there too, the more WordPress work I do, the better I get at it; and therefore the more comfortable I am doing more WordPress work etc.

What’s your favourite platform?

WordPress 2.8 Beta 1 has been running on this blog for a few days now and everything seems to be running just nicely. There are a whole list of changes that made it into this release. Here are my favourite improvements:

• New Theme Installer routines
• Add CodePress syntax highlighting to Theme and Plugin editors
• Add Documentation(function) lookup to Theme and Plugin editors
• Improved Widget user interface
• Use a semantic class name for text targeted to screen readers
• Improved database performance
• New Widget API

Of course there are loads of other changes, but those are the ones that stick in my mind as being the most important changes. A good code drop is like finding the best diet pill on the market. It helps trim the fat and gives you a chance for a positive change. This update isn’t as profound in terms of changes to the user interface, but it does introduce some important changes under the hood. So if you have a chance, download the beta and give it a try.