This entry is part 4 of 9 in the Plugin Thoughts Series
- Plugin Thoughts Episode 1: Making Your Plugins More Extensible
- Plugin Thoughts Episode Two – Use Filters for Plugin Text
- Plugin Thoughts Episode 3 – Don’t Forget About Core Functions
- Plugin Thoughts Episode 4 – Learn How Core Does It
- Plugin Thoughts Episode 5 – Take Responsibility for Your Products
- Plugin Thoughts Episode 6 – Contribute to the WordPress Codex
- Plugin Thoughts Episode 7 – Remember Core CSS
- Plugin Thoughts Episode 8 – Create Clean Code
- Plugin Thoughts Episode 9 – Write Better Code; Release Better Plugins
This episode of Plugin Thoughts discusses reasons why you, as a WordPress plugin developer, should make an effort to understand how WordPress core functions. By gaining an understanding of how core works, you not only improve the quality of your plugins, but you also make it much easier on yourself when it comes to debugging problems in your plugins, especially when the problematic error message is very uninformative.
Great post + video. I definitely need to suck it up and just get into the core code more often!
Andy,
Major kudos to you for taking the time to contributes such great direction for the WordPress Community. I wanted to share with you the story on how I came across your site and this post.
I was just chatting with a friend explaining the approach to questions like the one I answered on WordPress StackExchange: Modify Admin Bar Link is to always review the WordPress Core files. In doing so, you get a more in depth understanding of what is going on and all the options that may or may not be documented in the CODEX. I ask myself questions like this all the time and quickly create the solutions by reviewing the code. I then explained how I wish I had the time to post all those solutions for others to benefit. That’s when he sent me a link to your site and I realized how spot on you are.
Fantastic job on the content on this site. I look forward to checking more of it out.
Best Regards,
David Carroll
Thanks David! It’s always good to find others that are as interested as I am in exploring core files.
Just to give credit where credit is due – Pippin is the man responsible for this site. I’m just an admirer :).
Hi Pippin,
Thanks for the great material.
Is there a book that you would recommend to learn the WP Core better?
Not that I know of but this site is a great place to start: https://make.wordpress.org/core/
Hi Pippin, thank you very much for these videos and tutorials, the are incredible. I will apply (or try to 😀 ) to my plugin in the repo.
The video in this page is missing, it’s available “via inspector” but not rendered.
Thanks!
Thanks for letting me know, fixed!