Software Engineering in WordPress, PHP, and Backend Development
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.
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.
During my time on working on the WordPress Plugin Boilerplate, I’ve had some really good discussions with Gary Jones about some of the practices and conventions used throughout the code.
Up until this point, I’ve traditionally included a plugin.po file with each of my plugins to make it easy for translators; however, Gary’s been kind enough to point out the a .pot file should actually be included.
From a discussion on GitHub:
If you read the Codex page you linked to, you’ll see that it explains that .pot is the correct extension to use for the original translation file, since it is the template from which .po and .mo files are generated.
I’m not above admitting when there’s something I’ve not been doing correctly – after all, most developers should constantly be improving right?
At least I hope that’s the case.
Luckily, there are tools that make generating this catalog trivially easy so I thought I’d provide the steps necessarily to internationalize WordPress plugins specifically how I did so for the latest release of the Boilerplate.
One of the things that I’m most passionate about is helping other people learn how to pursue a career in some aspect of software development or web development.
It’s why I enjoy blogging, chatting with other developers on Twitter, talking with others via email, and sharing code and ideas for the sake of improving my own abilities as well as helping others.
Start the last week of this month, I’ll be partnering with Envato to lead a five-week workshop in which I’ll be teaching how to build a WordPress plugin from the ground up.
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
Kinsta offers premium managed WordPress hosting for everyone, small or large. Powered by Google Platform and strengthened by Cloudflare, they take performance to the next level. All hosting plans include 24/7/365 support from their team of WordPress engineers. Get started with a free migration today.
If you are looking for WordPress guides and unbiased reviews, I recommend checking out WPKube. They also have an exclusive deals section.
© 2025 Tom McFarlin
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑
