Tag: Plugins as Products

Should Money Dictate WordPress Plugin Code Quality?

December 5, 2017 / Tom

I don’t have many plugins available in the WordPress Plugin Repository anymore (and there are reasons for that), but I’ve been giving some thought to those plugins that I do have as well as the general level of code quality that goes into the first iteration of a plugin.

Plugin Code Quality: WordPress Plugin Repository

I mean, for some, plugins are merely small utilities that aim to do one thing and one thing well. Then, other plugins are much more advanced. I think these need a higher level of code quality to make them more maintainable.

But there’s one aspect of building plugins (or any software, really, but I’m specifically talking about WordPress plugins) that I find myself thinking about:

What level of plugin code quality of enough to ship the first version of a plugin?

Thinking Holistically About WordPress Plugins as Products – The User’s Experience

September 13, 2012 / Tom / 0 Comments

This is the final post in the Thinking Holistically About WordPress Plugins as Products series.

Throughout this series, I’ve been sharing my thoughts on what it means to think holistically about building WordPress plugins as products rather than simple utilities for blogging.

In the first post in the series, I defined this by saying:

Thinking holistically about WordPress Plugins is about the top-to-bottom, end-to-end experience that goes into building and that will go into using the product.

And in the second post, I shared my thoughts on the top-to-bottom – or the developer’s experience – of approaching WordPress plugin development as if we’re building quality products.

Similarly, I consider the end-to-end aspect of development to be epart of the WordPress Plugin user experience and that it’s arguably just as important as the developer’s experience.

So in attempt to continue thinking holistically about WordPress plugin development, here are my thoughts on the user’s experience – or the end-to-end aspects – of development.

Thinking Holistically About WordPress Plugins as Products – The Developer’s Experience

September 11, 2012 / Tom / 0 Comments

This is the second post in the Thinking Holistically About WordPress Plugins as Products series.

In this series of posts, I’m sharing my thoughts on what it means to think holistically about WordPress plugins as products rather than simple extensions for WordPress.

In the first post in the series, I defined this by saying:

Thinking holistically about WordPress Plugins is about the top-to-bottom, end-to-end experience that goes into building and that will go into using the product.

I generally consider the top-to-bottom aspect of plugins as the developer’s experience and the end-to-end aspect of plugins as the user’s experience.

So while sharing specific tips for developing WordPress plugins, I’ll be looking at the developer’s experience – or the top-to-bottom approach – thinking holistically about WordPress plugins.

Thinking Holistically About WordPress Plugins as Products – The Gold Rush

September 10, 2012 / Tom / 0 Comments

This is the first post in the Thinking Holistically About WordPress Plugins as Products series.

It goes without saying that one of the best (and worst) things about WordPress is the 20,000-some-odd plugins that are available. It would seem that there’s literally a plugin for everything, and if there’s not, then one can be or inevitably will be created.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that because a plugin is available that it will fulfill its intended purpose or will do it well.

Talking about plugins and whether or not they’re well-built or if they should be vetted against some type of set of rules are hot topics right now so I’ve no desire to rehash those topics here. Instead, I think there needs to be a shift in thinking by developers who are building WordPress plugins for a living or consider themselves to be professional WordPress developers.

Rather than looking to churn out as many plugins as possible that do as many things as possible, what if we were to begin thinking about WordPress plugins as products?

That is, what if we were to think holistically about what goes into a plugin rather than just source code?