Why I love Sitecore?

During DreamCore Europe 2011 visit, got “I love Sitecore” badge. And I always keep it near to my development box. Few people asked me “why you love Sitecore?” and I was just curious to know what people around the world thinks about Sitecore they hate it? or they love it?

Did a quick search and found nice survey for both hate and love on Amplicate.com. Found that 94% people love Sitecore  and 6% People hate Sitecore. Both type of people have their own reasons. If you ask me, I will be in 94% side(577+1). And yes, I’m sure you will surely want to know “why?” [We engineers always need some reasons to prove anything! :-)] and this post is just for sharing my reasons to love Sitecore! So, here you go! [They are not in any particular order]

1. Sitecore architecture : You might be already knowing Sitecore works on component based architecture. And really hats off to these guys for creating such a nice plug-gable and scalable architecture. For example you can add new button in ribbon by adding command in Core DB, do configuration in commands.config, write required code and you are done!, Event Queue mechanism for publishing rocks!, You can create templates just by few clicks and create N number of items based on it! [Do you remember those days — when you need to create new table, create data access layer, presentation layer control etc. to display data as per your need?], You can create layouts, renderings etc. as per your need and plug them in!, Sitecore caching is of a great help to improve performance.  You can read my earlier blog post to read more about Sitecore architecture.
2. Sitecore Support : If you ask me what is Sitecore’s heart, I would say “Sitecore Support”. We’ve been through so many difficult situations and Sitecore support team helped us to diagnose and solve our problems. Sometimes we ask stupid questions, but even though they reply it without complaining! :). I read in Sitecore hate link someone complained that they takes 24 hours to reply. I agree they take sometime to reply. But they are also human they also need sometime to understand, reproduce and diagnose any problem which you are facing in your local/production environment.
3. Sitecore Shared Source : This is the best place to download any ready-made module (Yes, along with source code!) of same as your need OR share it with world if you have written your own. You can see already available shared source modules from here. You can read my earlier blog post to read more about this.
4. Sitecore Developer Network :  SDN is a great place to download all Sitecore related documentation! [Honestly, initially it will be bit tough. But once you learn how it works it will be super easy for you to search anything on this portal!] and yes, Sitecore team is working on improving the documentation. I loved the Sitecore CMS Performance Tuning Guide a lot!
5. John West : John is really a superb guy! He has written a tons [more than that!] of blog and forum replies for us to learn and love Sitecore! I’m feeling lucky that I met him during my Dreamcore Europe 2011 visit. [And I was surprised to see his love towards Sitecore that when we get break after each session people go for some coffee/tea for relaxation and he start his laptop and reply on SDN forums! — Hats off!] I would call him “Sitecore Guru“!
6. SDN Forums : Knowledge shared is knowledge gained! SDN Forum is really a good place to get help of your problem, help others for the problem which you already faced and fixed! Or check a problem what you are currently facing which might be already faced by someone else and he/she might have suggested a solution for it!
7. Sitecore blogs : Great bloggers like Alex Shyba, Brian Pedersen and lot of other bloggers adding a lot of value by sharing their invaluable knowledge with the world!
8. Admin pages : Pages under /sitecore/admin are really helpful when you work on diagnosing any performance related problems. DatabaseTest is my favorite one! and created my own tool (CacheTuner) based on Cache.aspx
9. Sitecore events : Events like Dreamcore last year give us an opportunity to talk to experts who worked on the CMS at core level. Which you are using! Have a word with them, share your ideas — trust me it really helps a lot!
10. Sitecore Rocks : Honestly, haven’t started using Sitecore Rocks heavily as since so long time not working more on content part. But Sitecore Rocks looks really exciting and has so many nice functions for a better productivity! Good job — Jakob! [Who keeps on adding/fixing so many things day in and day out!]

So, You love Sitecore? or hate Sitecore? I’m sure you will go for first option! right? you said second option? May I ask “why?” — Please do post your “Why?” [In either case] in comments section!

Happy Sitecoring! 🙂