Software Engineering in WordPress, PHP, and Backend Development
Articles, tips, and resources for WordPress-based development.
Oftentimes, one of the great things you hear about WordPress is its low barrier to entry.
Depending on who you ask, this may be seen as a good thing or this may be seen as a bad thing. Whatever the perspective, I think there are inherent problems with treating any language and/or platform that way.
At best, experienced developers can pick it up quickly. At worst, beginners feel as if they’re lacking because this “low barrier” doesn’t actually feel so low.
One of the things that I really enjoy whether or not I’m out for a walk, a run, or a drive, is listen to a number of different podcasts. And I don’t think I’m an exception.
As with any topic that we all like, there are times in which I find myself wanting a WordPress podcast. To be clear, this isn’t to say there aren’t any – WP Tavern, DradCast, and Apply Filters turn out good stuff – and the now-defunct WP Candy Podcast used to be a fun listen, but I do think there’s a gap in WordPress-related podcasts.
At least in so far as the style of the podcast is concerned.
From a consumer perspective, WordPress is as attractive as it is because of the number of plugins that exist for it. From a developer perspective, WordPress is as attractive as it is because of how easy it is to extend the core application through the APIs.
They’re a hot topic, too – anyone (including me and probably you, as well) who’s worked with WordPress in any capacity has their opinions on some plugins, on certain plugins, on all plugins, on the plugin directory, and so on.
But one thing that we don’t talk about very much – at least right now – is the idea of extensions. But why? They’re something that are becoming more common with various plugins and with various themes.
Earlier this week, I decided to install the latest Postmatic beta on this site in order to give it a try. For those who aren’t familiar, Post Status has a great write up about it and you can watch the promotional video for it below:
In short, I think that anyone who manages a blog with any number of subscribers and commenters wants an easier way to manage their comments.
Maybe not. Maybe that’s just a few of us. But I know that I spend a significant portion of my day in my inbox, and I know that I try to respond to every comment that I get on this blog.
Sure, some fall through the cracks and that sucks, but having everything aggregated into email should alleviate that problem, right?
Every now and then, developers will ask – or will be asked – what is one of the most important things I should learn in order to get involved when writing code?
Obviously, this assumes that the person already knows how to write code, likely knows how to upload a site or compile the source code into an executable or any of that, but maybe they’re looking for something to amp up their development process.
Whatever the case, the rest of this content is for those who have been working with WordPress for a while, but are looking for some additional tools to help improve their development-fu. If you’re an intermediate to an advanced developer, this may not be of much interest.
But for the rest of you, I can’t recommend source control and differential utilities enough when amping up your development.
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