Sitecoders.net Web applications development for charitable and campaigning organisations

As of 19th August 2011, WordPress powers 14.7% of the top million websites in the world. From small beginnings as yet another blogging platform that is massive. One of the reasons for this massive growth of an open source application is its intelligent and open ended extensibility, provide through an API that allows independent developers to write WordPress plugins that can do pretty much anything you can imagine.

Unfortunately, one of the drawbacks of using plugins is that one cannot be so sure that they are as well written or efficient as the core WordPress files. I have installed a small chat plugin application on a client website that employed such an inefficient use of Ajax calls that an entire dedicated server crashed when the number of people chatting hit the 70s (won’t be using that one again).

I have a habit of deciding that if something needs doing well, I had better learn to do it myself, the best way possible. So I have set out to add the development of useful and excellently coded plugins to my set of skills. Here you will find available the fruits of my labours, from the simple to the more complex, as I continue to learn and develop my WordPress plugin programming skills.

I’m not entirely alone in this endeavour. I have to say that the best resource, apart from the WordPress codex, that I have discovered to date is the excellent “Professional WordPress Plugin Development” by Brad Williams, Ozh Richard and Justin Tadlock. And that *isn’t* an affiliate link