WordPress 2.7 and Parent/Child Themes

I upgraded to WordPress 2.7 this morning, and since Sandbox (which my old theme was built on) hasn’t been updated in forever and has known deficiencies with WordPress 2.7, I also installed K2.  Before switching themes, I poked around a little to see what else is out there in the world of “blank” or “reset” themes, and that lead me to discover that apparently, I was way ahead of the curve with this whole “child theme” thing.  Do a google search on “wordpress child theme,” and you’ll find a lot of very recent posts from prominent WordPress people talking about how this is the future of theming in WordPress, with tons of comments from people who didn’t even know the functionality existed. Weird.

I just wish WordPress would start shipping with an officially supported “blank” or “reset” theme by default, because I can’t stand any of the themes I’ve come across so far.  Just look at the header on this one.  That thing takes up 1/3 of my screen for a page title and a menu.  What a waste.  I could easily fit that information into something 15px high!  See, this is what I mean by nobody having any taste.  It’s as if all the web designers out there are designing for wide screen plasma TVs lately.

Anyway, here’s a list of some new “parent” or “framework” themes I came across today, just in case I decide to make a new minimalist theme for my website:

• Hybrid
• Thematic
• WP Framework