To widgetize or not to widgetize

Widget is a good thing.

Widgets are things you can put in your WordPress blog’s sidebar without knowing how to edit a web page.

As it said, it’s good to have a widgetized sidebar if you don’t know how to edit a web page.

But let’s see:

A developer said:

1. A widget creates additional processes on the server, no matter how efficient the code is.
2. Developing a widgetized sidebar element takes much longer than hardcoding it.
3. There’s no way a widget can integrate smoothly into all available WordPress themes.

While from a user’s point of view:

1. It’s nice that the sidebar can be edited from within the admin section.
2. Almost all of the widgets I downloaded don’t display correctly on my custom theme.

Is widget really necessary?

If you ask me, no! (at least for now)

• Unless I need to rearrange my sidebar elements EVERYDAY, it’s better to do it directly in the template file.
• Even if I develop a sidebar according to standards, most widgets will still need some (code) adjustments before they can be displayed correctly.
  

I’m not saying that widgets are bad. In fact, I love technological improvements like this that can make people’s lives easier. But for now, I don’t go with it.

It takes a minute to rearrange sidebar elements, less than an hour to make structural or formatting changes. But, it could take hours to develop a widgetized sidebar element just to make its formatting and structure editable from the admin section.