Category: Articles (Page 33 of 258)

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

The Difference in cURL and WordPress Requests

July 1, 2019 / Tom

cURL is a very popular PHP library that I’ve referenced in several posts other posts (1 and 2, for example). And it’s one that I think should be reviewed, explored, and possibly used by anyone working in PHP (yes, even those working in WordPress).

But because of the native WordPress APIs, we do have a level of abstraction that allows us to achieve much of the same functionality (if not the same functionality).

Specifically, I’m talking about wp_safe_remote_get.

This function is ideal when the HTTP request is being made to an arbitrary URL. The URL is validated to avoid redirection and request forgery attacks.

I specifically mention the safe variant of this function for the definition above (there is another variant, but it’s important to take precautions against arbitrary URLs for security reasons).
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When The Browser and Terminal Show Different Versions of PHP

June 20, 2019 / Tom

If you happen to see two different versions of PHP whenever you run:

php -v in the console and visit
phpinfo() in the browser

Then this usually means the version of PHP that your web server is using is different than the version of PHP your command-line is using.

Specifically, this means you likely have more than one installation, and the web server is using one version, and the terminal is using a different version (in addition to using a CLI version of the interpreter).

Of course, if you’re seeing the browser and the terminal show different versions of PHP then something is wrong. You want them to be the same, but depending on how your system is configured, then you may need to update your environmental variables.

I was recently having issues with this with various installations of PHP installed via Homebrew and with my local installation of Valet.

This is what I did to fix it.

A Return to Form (Over a Decade in the Making)

June 18, 2019 / Tom

I don’t know how many people are considered “regular readers” of this site (let alone any site, to be honest) because social media has changed how we find content, save it, and read it.

But if you’re someone who browses this site on any regular basis, then you’ve likely noticed that I’ve not posted anything related to development for a couple of weeks now.

Nothing’s wrong; life is good. But I’ve been taking a step back on several things in which I’m involved to take stock of essentially:

what I’m doing,
why I’m doing it,
what I want to continue to do,
and why I want to do it.

And if you were around when blogging was what it was, say, five years ago, then you know it’s considered “bad form” talk about not blogging and to get all apologetic about it.

I’m not getting apologetic about it, though.

Instead, I’m providing an update as to what I plan to do with this site moving forward.

And no, it’s not the type of post that contains anything related to WordPress development or programming.

On Alternative Methods of Blog Feedback

June 6, 2019 / Tom

Last month, I published two articles that talked about using cURL to handle redirects that may inevitably happen when working with certain URLs.

Specifically, I’m talking about:

And though the second one is more of the subject of this post, I wanted to reference both since they are related.

Earlier this month, I wrote a bit how the purpose of blogging has changed. Perhaps it would’ve been better to talk about the motivation rather than the purpose, but I digress.

In this post, I talk a bit about commenting and feedback. And since I’ve closed comments, one of the ways that people will talk with me about certain posts is via Twitter.

Case in point:

Isn’t it better to return 200 === $httpCode as there are other possible status codes too?

— Xaver (@xaver_) May 30, 2019

And I like this because it’s:

a clearly stated, succinct question,
it’s directed towards me (with the potential for others to chime in),
and it can keep the conversation on the topic without it devolving into something else in the comments.

Further, Xaver’s question is good because it shows where my content may be lacking, and it gives me the opportunity to write a follow-up or a clarification on a post like this 🙂.

The thing is, the response to this particular question may not be as long as the lead in, but I always want to give enough context before providing an answer.

The Evolving Purpose of Blogging

June 4, 2019 / Tom

In the last eight years or so, maybe less, the way we blog has changed. Maybe not so much in terms of how we do it but in terms of:

what it is that we have to say,
how we say what we want to say,
how other people read what it is that we have to say (which is really more on them but you get it, right?)

I remember when it was much more about the comment engagement and also sharing what we thought, learned, or viewed on a particular subject.

As much as possible, I still try to stick to that. That is, I try to share:

what I’m doing,
what I’ve learned,
and my perspective on a given subject.

Now, though, I’m not as much concerned about the comments (hence why I turned them off some time ago). This doesn’t mean I don’t care about feedback – I do – but I find when people have to jump through a few extra steps to provide feedback, the quality of it goes way up.

Anyway, it seems to me that blogging has drastically changed in one major way over the last few years:

We write for a reaction rather than edification.

Reaction, in and of itself, isn’t bad. Of course, it’s not. But the type of reaction we seek may be. But I’m not here to get too much into that. Instead, I’m wondering if the purpose of blogging hasn’t changed.