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How to Publish a WordPress Plugin – Git
Last week we covered how to publish a WordPress plugin using Subversion. But many of us aren’t using Subversion. I know that after I started using version control, I quickly graduated to Git and Mercurial for managing distributed development. It makes it easier for me to collaborate with others, and makes it easier for other people to take my ideas and run in new directions. Actually, those two reasons most of us like Git and Mercurial are probably the two reasons keeping WordPress in Subversion. But I digress … Here is a step-by-step tutorial for publishing a WordPress plugin using Git.…
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How to Publish a WordPress Plugin – Subversion
After a discussion on the WordPress Answers Stack Exchange yesterday, I thought it would be a good idea to explain the different ways you can develop plugins for WordPress. Since the official plugin repository uses Subversion for version control, that’s the obvious first choice when you’re just starting your development stack. So here is, step-by-step, a tutorial on how to get started using Subversion to track changes in and eventually publish your WordPress plugin. Things you’ll need to follow along: A WordPress plugin to write TortoiseSVN (Mac users see my note about SCPlugin) A WordPress.org account
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In Pursuit of Innocence
We all have bad days. Those days when all the world conspired against us and we fight tooth and nail to stay above the chaotic din of “those people.” This entire mentality seems to stem from a disdainful misanthropy that develops when we finally make the jump from childhood to adulthood. It’s definitely not something present in our youth. Kids, on the whole, are full of positive energy. It’s only when their innocence is tainted that they begin to see the world through a lenses of angst and cynicism. We spend most of our lives clawing after this innocence. We…
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Self-Funded Line of Credit
I was thinking this past week of ways to save money, and I realized lately how “odd” my primary strategy seems to other people. I’m in the process of paying off my credit cards, so when I need to make a large purchase I give myself a self-funded line of credit. Basically, I give myself a loan. A loan that I pay back. Think of it as my checking account taking out a credit card from the Bank of My Savings Account. I make monthly payments, charge myself interest, and actually make money on my purchases. Think about that. I make…
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The Death of the Idea
What value is there in an idea that never sees the light of day? Many times, we come up with fantastic ideas. The next great American novel. The next great web project. The next multi-billion dollar disruptive innovation. But 99 times out of 100, the idea dies in its infancy. We create a great plan, bounce it around inside our head, then let the spark of imagination and brilliance fizzle out without explaining it to anyone else. The idea dies, and we trudge on through life towards the next disappointment. This is not the way things should be. On my…
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A Rookie Attempt at Cron in CentOS
For years, I used shared hosting systems exclusively for all my websites. They were affordable, easy to manage, and required zero effort on my part to set up and maintain. Unfortunately, I have a habit of rapidly outgrowing hosts and usually have to migrate to bigger and better servers about once a year. I finally decided to bite the bullet and purchased a VPS hosting system with a great company called Atum last month. The advantage of this is that I have complete control over the VPS. Whereas before I could only host websites, I can now host my own…
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WordPress and Ajax
This post is long overdue. For that, I apologize. Now, on to the fun! Everyone knows I love WordPress. I build my websites on the platform. I write plug-ins for other sites. I recommend it to all of my clients. I’ve even contributed code to core. Let’s stipulate for now that I think WordPress is awesome. Those of you who know and follow my work also understand how much I enjoy working with JavaScript – particularly with Ajax. There’s something about making user interfaces work so smoothly that just speaks to me. Like art for web geeks. And Ajax just…
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Communion and Shaving
Not two things you’d typically put together in a single idea, are they? But I’ve come to realize that the act of shaving and the Christian tradition of communion have quite a bit in common. I start every morning with a good shave. I wake up, splash some hot water on my face, lather, and pull out my razor. For the past several months, I’ve also traded in my Schick Quatro for a straight razor (a Parker SR2 to be exact). It gives me a closer shave, takes a great deal more skill to use, and helps me to start…
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Why Open Source? – Part 2
Last month, I joined with several developers in explaining my reasoning behind working with open source software. Like many others, I am involved in open source projects because I enjoy working with the community. Last night, I only reinforced that. For some time, I’ve been hosting all of my various WordPress websites on a multisite network – meaning I install WordPress once and everything ties together. This makes it easier to process code updates when they come out (install once rather than several times) and I can jump from the admin panel of one to the other without having to…
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Open Source Decision Making
Earlier this week a member of the WordPress community, Jacob Santos, aired his concerns with WordPress’ decision making process on the oft distracting WP Hackers mailing list. His argument, in response to a WordPress.org forum thread regarding 2011 roadmaps, comes from the idea that WordPress development is not driven by community input. On the one hand, I agree with him… First, a little history I started blogging in 2003. At the time, my blog was hand-written HTML built in FrontPage and uploaded to a shared server at my college. It was a pain to build, even more of a pain…