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Personal opinions and how-to’s that I’ve written both here and as contributions to other blogs.

Should a WordPress Plugin Change Post Content?

May 23, 2013 — 2 Comments

Yesterday, I released Markdown Code For WordPress – an extremely simple plugin that makes it easy to replace Markdown backticks (`) with inline code comments. As mentioned in the post, it scratches an itch of my own that I’ve opted to share just in case anyone else shares the same, y’know, itch.

In the comments, Konstantin left a great question that I felt was worth discussing further:

Why not carry out the search and replace once before the post is saved and not every time it is displayed?

I left a response in the comments:

I didn’t want to do prior to saving the post just in case people use it, opt to disable the plugin, and then want to go with some other markdown editor or some other plugin. This keeps the original tokens in take so they can do a search and replace for it.

In short, I’ve had less than stellar experiences (read: back feedback) when it comes to mucking with data prior to saving it with the database especially when users want to abandon the plugin.

But I thought this was a great question that warranted a deeper discuss and wanted to bring it up here to get the rest of opinions from fellow developers.

In Articles WordPress

My Day-To-Day: Blog Every Day

May 17, 2013 — 8 Comments

In recent months, I’ve received a few tweets, questions, and emails asking my strategy for how I blog every day. The truth is that I hesitate to answer this question because I think that so much of being able to do so has to do with each of our personalities.

For example, some of the most creative people I know can’t stand schedules, timelines, certain forms of organization, and what not – simply put, they find inspiration in the chaos.

This isn’t to say that I consider myself creative in the sense that many artists and designers are, but I think that we all have some form of creativity within us, but I digress on this point for now.

On the other hand, I’m one of those that tends to be more rigid with my time management. I try to have guardrails setup for social media, I like making lists, I think there’s something to be said about writing every day even if it’s not blogging, and I tend to “go dark” when I really need to focus on a certain task (and this is true both online and offline – just ask my wife!).

But if I had to generalize some tips on how to blog every day regardless of your personality, it would boil down to the following three points.

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An Introduction To Design Patterns in WordPress

May 14, 2013

Comments on are closed on this post so we can keep the discussion on the original articles.

When it comes to software development, design patterns are commonplace; however, we don’t often seen them in WordPress development. As such, I thought it would worth covering an introduction to design patterns in WordPress.

Over the course of the month, I’m running a four-part series on Envato that covers Design Patterns in WordPress.

In Articles Envato

Some Thoughts on The Light Side of Developing Open Source Software

May 13, 2013 — 1 Comment

Last week, I wrote an article in which I shared my thoughts on The Dark Side of Developing Open Source Software. I generally try to be balanced in my perspective on things like this, and I had planned to write this particular article at some point, but I received an anonymous comment that said the following:

wonderful issues altogether, you just received a brand new reader.
What would you suggest in regards to your post that you simply made a few days in the past?

Any positive?

The short answer is of course there are positives, so here is my experience with the benefits of developing open source software.

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Some Thoughts on The Dark Side of Developing Open Source Software

May 9, 2013 — 9 Comments

Many of us who are involved in the WordPress community are also big fans of open source. We use tools such as GitHub to share code and collaborate with others, we often blog about the advantages of open source, and even challenge one another to open source our projects even if the developer’s initial desire is to keep it closed.

But why?

It’s because we believe that the advantages of open sourcing a project far out weigh keeping it closed, right? At least that’s part of it.

Obviously, I’m not someone who has built any large applications that are open source. I use a few, I’ve contributed to a few, and I’ve done my best to make sure a number of projects are open source (though, for the record, I’m not someone who is philosophically against closed source, either).

The thing is, there’s a side of the open source community that is rarely discussed. Or, if it is discussed, then I’ve missed the conversation. But after releasing the second version of the WordPress Plugin Boilerplate yesterday, I thought it might be worth sharing some of the downside of open source development. Continue Reading…

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Hey, Wait – Don’t “Mark All As Read!”

May 1, 2013 — 14 Comments

Last week, I talked mentioned I try to write every day. Personal stuff aside, it’s clear that I aim to write for this particular blog five days a week.

Though I’ve no plans to change that, I’ve know that writing daily can create a backlog for readers that makes it difficult to keep up with.

Ultimately, this results in readers opting not to discuss anything in the comments, or it results in subscribers calling bankruptcy on the RSS feed.

To that and (and perhaps somewhat ironically), I’m curious as to what you guys think as well as hearing your thoughts on some potential alternatives.

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WordPress For Rapid Application Development

April 29, 2013 — 15 Comments

Last week, I talked about using WordPress as an application platform – once again, even – but Ted Waller brought up an interesting comment that I’ve not heard (at least here on this blog) that I wanted to discuss a bit more.

Specifically, Ted said:

Whether or not it’s wise to use it as the final application framework, I do think it’s very good for rapid prototypes of web apps.

And what really caught my attention about this particular comment was that I’ve not often heard of WordPress as being a tool for rapid application development (or RAD).

The thing is, RAD – for whatever reason – has often been used whenever someone is talking about prototyping an application or doing some type of development, but nothing that’s seriously ready for prime time, for the enterprise, or for whatever term you’d opt to use.

But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered:

Is rapid application development misunderstood?
Is WordPress truly good for RAD or is it the best of both worlds?

In Articles WordPress

My Day-To-Day: Write Every Day

April 26, 2013 — 4 Comments

For those of us who actually, y’know, like writing and try to write every day, it’s never been tougher to actually settle on a platform on which to do so.

Off the top of my head, the following services are available:

But we live in the age of a noisy Internet. Obviously, I love writing as much as the next person, but the problem with many publishing platforms is that they are all designed to be public.

And the thing is, not everything we have to say needs to be shared with everyone.

TL;DR: I think that writing every day is something that many people should do, but not everything we need to write needs to be done so in a public manner. Day One has been one of the best applications that I’ve found that makes it easy to write every day without publishing it for the world to see.

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But Seriously, WordPress as an Application Platform?

April 24, 2013 — 19 Comments

I’ve spent more than enough time talking about my position on using WordPress as a platform for writing web applications, but there’s one aspect of doing so that I don’t think that I’ve actually bothered discussing very much.

Namely, if WordPress is suitable as a platform for application development, then does it make sense to use it when another framework, set of libraries, or core tools may also fit the bill?

In Articles WordPress

It’s Dangerous To Go Alone (So Don’t!)

April 23, 2013 — 2 Comments

A couple of months ago, my team and I received an email from a film crew who were shooting a documentary on the The Legend of Zelda franchise and were interviewing people all over the country who had grown up playing the franchise and were open to discussing the impact that the game had on their lives.

Yesterday, It’s Dangerous To Go Alone - the official site and trailer – went live.

Though I rarely deviate from talking about development especially with WordPress on this blog, there’s a point that I made during the course of our interview that was mentioned on the website that I felt worth discussing here.

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