One of the things I’ve been considering for a while now (read: most of this year) is archiving my GitHub repositories and retiring what WordPress plugins I currently have available.

Last month, I spent time thinking about why I’d want to do so versus just letting them sit. Though there are multiple reasons for doing so, there’s one reason to which I kept returning (and plenty of others I’ll outline in moment).

But first, the TL;DR is this: There’s a single side project I want to work on without any distractions.

That’s it. Nothing elaborate, fancy, or groundbreaking. The thing about having a variety of other repositories available, though, is that there are occasional emails about bugs, feature requests, etc., all of which are appreciated but most of which I don’t have time on which to focus at the moment.

Instead, I think my time can be better spent on other work. And I think I want to spend my time on other things.

Archiving My GitHub Repositories

When you opt to make a move like this, it can be easy to justify.

  • “I want to do it. That’s all.”
  • “I’m tired of working on the projects.”
  • “I’m moving on to other types of work.”
  • And more.

And all of those are completely valid reasons. The reason I’m taking the time to write about this, though, is because so many of my repositories are the reason that I’m doing what I’m doing today.

That is, were is not for many of the blog posts, plugins, and public repositories available, then I wouldn’t have the paper trail of work in WordPress that ultimately lead me to what I’m working on today, with whom I’m working today, or continue to motivate me to work on the things that I’m working on today.

So I don’t take them for granted; however, there are other things on which I want to focus and that I need to put to rest.

Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to.

Granted, the above video is way over the top for something like this but I’m a fan and the phrase kept coming up the more I thought about all of this. It’s obligatory. 🙃

That said, there’s a few more things I’d like to say.

1. Archiving is Not Deleting

Straight from GitHub:

When you archive a repository, you are letting people know that a project is no longer actively maintained.

GitHub

I’m not going to be deleting anything but I’m also not going to be maintaining anything. Everything will still be available for reference but it’s also becoming more and more dated the more I move forward in my career.

2. I’m Deleting Active Plugins

Right now, I just have two plugins in the WordPress Plugins Repository

  1. Easier Excerpts
  2. Scheduled Posts Shortcut

I like these plugins and I use them (and a few others do, too if the stats are accurate) but they aren’t something I want to maintain long term.

The code is on GitHub, will be archived, so it’s still accessible but not maintained.

3. A Side Project

What I’ve wanted to do for sometime is have a dedicated side project outside of work that I can use to both employ and practices certain software engineering skills, modern PHP development tools, and that uses WordPress as a foundation for the work.

I’m happy to share what the project is going to be – though don’t expect much 🙂 – once I’ve figured out all of the details.

For now, though, I need to go through the process of removing plugins and archiving active GitHub repositories.

Once done, then I’ll look at sharing more information about what I’m looking to focus on in my increasingly decreasing amount of free time.