Why can't WordPress by default look like this? I have to commend the WordPress team for creating a relatively simple way of making themes in general, but the one for their admin console blows compared to this admin console theme (called Tiger). One of the reasons that I find myself sticking to Movable Type for now is because of the fact that its admin console is so clean, and it uses the same template tags that your blog is rendered with. It will be interesting to see what happens on the 10th when WordPress 2.5 comes out. This is supposed to be a big effort to refactor some of the back-end code and change things up on the security side as well. The admin console interface seems to be largely unchanged, which is a shame. Adopting something like the "Tiger" admin console look would have done wonders to clean up the interface and make the default WordPress 2.5 more competitive with a default installation of Movable Type 4.1.

As a blog platform, WordPress is ahead of Movable Type in a few important areas:

• It has a larger, more active community of developers and style designers.
• It has certain features such as private posts and blogrolls built into it, which Movable Type doesn't have.
• It is easier for the average person to just drop it in and use it.

Where I see Movable Type having solid advantages over WordPress is in the following areas:

• Movable Type is far more powerful as a development platform than WordPress, if you are willing to really get into Perl. If you have only looked at WordPress, you'd probably be shocked at how much more robust Movable Type is at the API and template levels than WordPress.
• Movable Type is moving into a position where it is able to be a blog suite and a complete CMS capable of creating a wide variety of websites.
• Movable Type by default could care less what database or web server you want to use. It can plug into SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL and some versions can use Oracle. If you are willing to work with it, it can fit into just about anyone's environment without adding anything new, except in cases where you might not already have a database or web server.

There is no reason why WordPress and Movable Type can't, and shouldn't, coexist comfortably. WordPress might work better for me in the future for my personal blog, but I'd build the website for my mom's antique business with Movable Type.

I know I'm fickle about the blog software I use. It doesn't help that right now I'm on overhead at the consulting group I work for, and have the time to think about these things. Hacking on Movable Type, writing blog posts about minutia like this and such is just about the only thing that keeps me marginally sane most days.