Software Engineering in WordPress, PHP, and Backend Development
One of the challenges of learning a library (be it the standard library of functions that come with a programming language or a third-party project) is two-fold:
And, really, sometimes even learning how to use said functions isn’t all that hard – it’s knowing when to use a given function to help minimize code while still achieving the goals of the project.
Software like Gulp and other utilities aren’t new. For those who haven’t used them before, it can be a little daunting to get started (but it really shouldn’t be).
In comparison to tools like CodeKit (which I still like and recommend, depending on the project), they have a little more overhead regarding getting them set up, configured, and ready to go.
But once you’ve got it all set it up, it can be really useful with a distributed team regardless of operating system, and it can help it make your build process a bit more robust.
That’s not the purpose of the post, though. Instead, here’s a list of a few packages for starters.
Think of them this way: If you’re looking for ways to work with Sass, JavaScript, and image optimization, these are good libraries.
In the previous post, I walked through the process required to get WordPress modal dialogs to appear within the context of the administration area.
This uses:
In this tutorial, I’ll walk through populating the modal dialog with data. After that, I’ll share how to populate the data dynamically using Ajax.
In the last post, I said we couldn’t afford some of the same luxuries that statically typed, compiled languages have. Specifically, I was talking about the idea of not having to deal with autoloaders.
Instead, compiled languages can take all of the files that make up the program, process them, and bundle them up into a single binary.
But to do that, it needs a specific type of a program to do that.
In the previous post, I covered a few points as to why I think that include_once, require_once, and other similar statements result in poor development practices (at least when it comes to the work we’re doing with our WordPress projects).
If you haven’t read it, no big deal. The gist of the post is that these statements make:
Ultimately, they are things we can avoid. I ended the post with the following:
This still leaves the question of why autoloading (or any inclusion of third-party files) is needed at all.
And though I’d love to cover all the details in this post, it’s going to take this and one more post as its important to understand some foundational topics on languages, interpreters, and compilers before getting too far ahead.
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 ↑