Category: Articles (Page 108 of 258)

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

Custom Plugins: What’s Loaded, What’s at the Ready?

November 7, 2016 / Tom / 0 Comments

The longer I work in building custom plugins for other people, the more I’m convinced of the advantages of maintaining a personal library of classes (or functions depending on your style) that help expedite tasks that are common to every project.

Sure, it can be hard to determine what you’ll require for every project and what you’ll require for some projects.

Custom Plugins and Required Files

And there’s nothing wrong with focusing specifically on the latter, but there are advantages that you have, at the bare minimum, a foundation off of which you can build custom plugins for others without constantly re-writing the same code over and over and over.

And over.

And you get it.

So what are the things that we should have and what are the things we should save, say, at the ready?

Intuition, Laziness, Discipline, and Experience

November 4, 2016 / Tom / 0 Comments

When I sat down to write this post, I didn’t have an idea as to convey what I wanted to say. (And that’s a ridiculous thing to feel when you’re writing. )

Honestly, I just had a single sentence that I’d jotted down a few days ago and was going to flesh out in more detail.

Developer Intuition

I wrote:

You begin to develop a sense of intuition for how something should be designed or implemented.

It’s not even really a fully developed thought. It’s just a statement (and I’m not even sure it’s a good one) that I was going to explain in more detail. But then I stumbled across this post and found this statement:

I’ve become a big fan of the “do less & be lazy” approach to building things.

And though the post is about the performance of pages using web fonts, it’s still related to what I want to convey.

All that to say I didn’t have a post, just a statement, and I needed an opener. In reading another post, I found it in the quote above.

Using Configuration Files for Class Properties

November 3, 2016 / Tom / 0 Comments

The idea of using some type of configuration files for a project isn’t anything new. Nor is the idea of using a format such as JSON.

Look in any directory for a number of major applications that you use, be it a source control manager, IDE, a build tool, et al., and you’re likely to find some type of configuration file. (And when it comes to build tools, many of us already write configuration files using JSON specifically to tell the build tool information about our project.)

Configuration Files as seen in VS Code.

Yesterday, I shared some of the challenges that can come with creatively solving problems and said that I was going to talk about something I’ve been working on:

With all of that said, it wouldn’t be particularly honest of me if I didn’t discuss and share my code, though, would it?

So that’s the purpose of this post: To talk about one way that I’ve been looking to solve a problem in a project on which I’m working.

The Intimidation of Creatively Solving Problems

November 2, 2016 / Tom

One of the things about programming in the same “environment” for an extended period is that you get comfortable with the way you tackle similar problems.

Case in point:

When you start writing a plugin, you likely have an idea as to how you will implement something before writing it.

I’d venture to say that this begins to happen while the client is describing their problem. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong about this. In fact, I believe that it’s probably a good thing as it’s a sign you’re learning your way around the API, how to structure files, assets, and so on.

But at what point do we start coasting on autopilot? Or, perhaps a better way to ask it, is when are we just going through the motions of solving different-but-similar problems?

Desktop Applications via the WordPress REST API?

October 31, 2016 / Tom / 0 Comments

There are a lot of reasons that people are excited to have the WordPress REST API merged into core.

The WordPress REST API Plugin

I think some are excited because they won’t need to include the plugin dependency anymore; others, honestly speaking, I think are happy to see it merged for the sake of it. Whatever the case, having the entire infrastructure is core is neat, and I’m excited, but almost none of the client work I’m doing at the moment warrant it.

I believe that will change, though, as people learn what we can do with it. But until that time comes, one of the things I like to do is try to think broadly about what could the REST API offer that isn’t directly related to blogging.

And this leads me to a much broader question.