Software Engineering in WordPress, PHP, and Backend Development
One of the nicest things about WordPress is how easy it is for developers to extend its functionality, and how easy it is for users to find plugins that help them enhance their blog.
All conversations about plugin quality and compatibility aside, WordPress plugin support is one area of development that often seems to be rarely discussed (unless I’m missing all the people talking about it!).
For as long as I’ve been on the Internet (well, the Internet as my generation knows it ;), developers and designers have usually maintained some type of display of their work and it’s generally consisted of a listing of projects that they’ve completed with outbound links to said project.
I’ve toyed with the idea of going into detail as to how I’ve built certain projects – you can see this in posts such as how I built Category Sticky Post and Tag Sticky Post – but I’ve never gone all in as I’ve never sold on if it was of any interest to others.
But yesterday, Smashing Magazine ran a bit of a motivational post on Retiring The Portfolio Screenshot and focusing more on “case study” type posts.
This got me thinking about beginning to introduce a case study on WordPress projects.
When it comes to discussing WordPress development, I think that one topic that’s hard to come by is how to begin taking on professional WordPress development gigs.
Specifically, I think that we could do a better job of communicating what to expect when another developer opts to make the move to become a professional WordPress developer. And by that, I mean doing something part-time or full-time for pay.
For roughly the past two years, I’ve divided my time between self-employment and two startups the latter two using WordPress as the backbone for their software. For the former, I’ve built a number of plugins – most free, a few premium – and have worked on a number of contracts building sites, plugins, and applications for others.
With that said, I thought I’d do my part in sharing some advice for the aspiring WordPress developer.
In the same way that I’ve been working on the WordPress Plugin Boilerplate, I’ve never really done a good job of handling versioning. I’ve simply closed tickets as they’ve been opened and I’ve resolved issues as I – or others – have encountered them.
Next month, I’m hoping to officially tag it and the WordPress Plugin Boilerplate as version 1.0, but I’m hoping to get a few more eyes on the code prior to doing so.
This weekend, I spent some time closing tickets, refactoring some code, and improving a few aspects of both of the boilerplates to improve its overall standard.
Here’s a run down of everything that’s been updated since the I initially launched the WordPress Widget Boilerplate:
Since I’ve been working on the WordPress Plugin Boilerplate, I’ve never really done a good job of handling versioning for it. Instead, I’ve closed tickets as they’ve shown up and I’ve resolved issues as I – or others – have encountered them.
Next month, I’m hoping to officially tag it and the WordPress Widget Boilerplate as version 1.0, but I’m hoping to get a few more eyes on the code prior to doing so.
This weekend, I spent some time closing tickets, refactoring some code, and improving a few aspects of the code to improve its overall standard.
Here’s a run down of everything that’s been updated since the I initially launched the boilerplate:
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