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Removing Git Commit History (Both Local and Remote)

June 1, 2017 / Tom / 0 Comments

Though most of us know we should never commit any sensitive information to a source code repository (be it Git, Subversion, or whatever), there are times in which it happens.

Most of the time, I imagine it happens whenever we’re working on code and then hopping back and forth between the IDE and a terminal and committing code to make sure we’re not losing any changes.

This happens long enough, and then we end up committing a consumer key and consumer secret or a username and password or something similar to the repository.

Luckily, we can remove commits to revert our code, but most source control systems end up keeping a history of everything (which is a good thing). But what if we need to go about removing Git commit history in both our local and remote repositories?

On Immutable Values in WordPress Plugins

May 31, 2017 / Tom / 0 Comments

If you’ve done any work – or even any reading – on object-oriented programming, then you’ve likely come across the idea of immutability. That is the idea of something being unchanging.

Sometimes you can have immutable values, and sometimes you can have immutable objects (at least after they are instantiated).

The opposite of immutable (but he was my favorite ninja turtle, anyway).

The thing is, the more I work with object-oriented code, the less I tend to work with immutable variables. Sure, I’ll use constants as defined in a configuration file, but you’re not likely to find me storing values within a class as a const.

That probably implies something about me and my abilities, but it’s true. Thankfully, code reviews are great at helping you see opportunities on where to leverage strategies you normally wouldn’t. And such is the case with immutable values in WordPress plugins.

Of course, this is one of those things that was brought to my attention by a friend when reviewing my code.

Sending Secure Ajax Requests in WordPress (with Nonces)

May 30, 2017 / Tom / 0 Comments

I know that the REST API is a huge topic of conversation in WordPress right now, and rightfully so, but there are still times in which we have to use admin-ajax (as its coming to be known) for a variety of reasons.

Perhaps it’s an application,
Perhaps time doesn’t allow for creating the necessary endpoints,
Perhaps you’re more comfortable with admin-ajax,
And so on.

Regardless of your reasons for why you use it (which I still do, for whatever that’s work), I think it’s important to make sure we’re sending secure Ajax requests in WordPress using nonces just as you would if you were submitting traditional form data.

Legitimate, live shot of wires carrying your Ajax request.

If you search the web for results on how to do that, you’ll come up with a variety of answers, and this will be just another drop in the proverbial bucket.

But if you’re curious for a recipe for how to handle it, this is how I do it each time.

So When Do We Update Out-of-Date Blog Posts?

May 29, 2017 / Tom / 0 Comments

Late last week, a good friend of mine linked me to a post I wrote earlier this year.

Do we update out of date blog posts?

If you opt not to read the post, the short of it is this:

tt’s about a plugin bootstrap file,
and there’s a discussion in the comments about it.

Here’s the thing: The more work you do with a given set of tools, the more you’re going to learn and the greater your skills are going to get.

So the posts that you’ve written become a bit out of date. Are we then recommending bad advice? Ultimately, this raises the question of what do we do with blog posts that may be out of date?

Rapid Prototyping: Introducing Autoloading

May 26, 2017 / Tom / 0 Comments

Over the last few posts, I’ve walked through the process of taking an idea from concept to prototype.

Granted, there are some things that you might change (and there are some things I’d change regarding organizing classes). But the point of the series isn’t to walk through all of the various object-oriented techniques that can be used to create a solution.

Instead, it’s about taking a prototype and converting it into something a little more professional. There’s still one thing that we need to do, though.

Right now, we include all of our files through require statements. And this works alright for small files, but introducing autoloading in conjunction with namespaces can make the application even cleaner.

And that’s what we’re going to do.

Tom McFarlin

Removing Git Commit History (Both Local and Remote)

On Immutable Values in WordPress Plugins

Sending Secure Ajax Requests in WordPress (with Nonces)

So When Do We Update Out-of-Date Blog Posts?

Rapid Prototyping: Introducing Autoloading