If you use learn the funky MiXedCase MT template tags you know… Movable Type. A proprietary tag system used no where else in the world.

Good news: You can use lowercase tags in MT4. So if your primary consideration for blogging platforms is an aversion to the shift key, mt:entries will be your new best friend. The template tag system in MT is used in TypePad as well, of course, and it’s built into Adobe Dreamweaver. Which is hardly “nowhere else in the world”.

If you learn WordPress theming you know PHP, the most widely used scripting language on the web. You’re also well-positioned to help the numerous bloggers and businesses who continue to switch to or start with WordPress every day.

Oh, c’mon. I know enough PHP to know that being familiar with the_loop is hardly the same thing as knowing PHP. In fact, if you learn MT’s PHP template tags, you learn Smarty templating. Which is a PHP skill you can actually use on other applications. But this whole line of conversation is kind of disingenuous — it’s along the lines of “if you extend Microsoft Word using C, you can write your own operating system!” Technically, it’s true, but it’s kind of irrelevant as a criterion for platform selection.

Abhijit, an advantage of your blog over Jesse’s is it doesn’t require me to “type ‘x’ in the box” to leave a comment…

That’s a great point, Matt. Jesse should be using OpenID on his blog, since it’s built in to MT4 and doesn’t require a plugin, as it does on Abhijit’s blog right now.

If you learn WordPress theming you know PHP, the most widely used scripting language on the web. You’re also well-positioned to help the numerous bloggers and businesses who continue to switch to or start with WordPress every day.

Abhijit, an advantage of your blog over Jesse’s is it doesn’t require me to “type ‘x’ in the box” to leave a comment…

I have worked on MT, though not as extensive as on WP, and perhaps on older versions. The reason I said MT search is better is because it allows regular expressions and boolean queries, as far as I remember.

My differentiation in the MT editions is because of features like LDAP user management, user account synchronization and industry leading documentation which are not listed for the community edition.

And I do agree with you that MT is not inferior, as I have said in the post, but it is not superior either.

I agree with you on some things. How much gets built in and how much remains a plugin has been one of the major discussions over on Pronet.

Having worked extensively with both platforms, though, I’m going to have to disagree with you on the template tags. It’s nothing at all like Perl or PHP. In fact, it’s not a language at all. It’s really just something that looks like an HTML template tag, only that represents data from a database. (You don’t even have to self close tags like XML, but I do because I’m obsessive compulsive.) But it’s human readable. Stuff like MTEntryPermalink or MTBlogDescription. Can’t get easier than that.

And I’m not sure I understand your dual edition argument. There’s only one Movable Type, with an add-on component for enterprise customers. That’s not an unusual thing; WP even offers WP-MU if people want to manage multiple blogs.

You are right that publishing files can be a drag, but MT has not only gotten a lot smarter about what needs to get rebuilt, it’s also got RebuildQueue (which publishes in the background) built in. And I laughed out loud that you think MT search is better! I’ve often thought it was it’s weakest point. Ah well. =)

Anyhow, if you know WP, by all means recommend it to your friends. They’ll probably be coming to you for support anyhow. Just don’t write off MT as inferior, because it’s got a LOT of power under the hood.

Cheers!