Get the most out of WordPress Coding

So, are you a beginner who wants to start WordPress coding or an expert who wants to polish their WordPress coding skills? Here is an article for you. This piece will help you understand the basics you need to get the best out of WordPress in terms of developing plugins and themes on WordPress. To become a guru in coding, you must be conversant with the basics and fundamental skills that you should possess on your sleeve. You should also know the small things that could easily go wrong and turn your coding dream into a wish.

To be able to do that, you will have to understand some of the core topics in WordPress coding. The topics will get you started on the right foot and enable you to emulate the successful people in the industry and the SEO experts have, over the years, perfected on their skills. These topics are well described below in a manner that will be easy to understand and apply.

1.  The Standards for coding on WordPress

These are ‘rules’ that should be followed when coding on WordPress. Many people will agree that not following the standards of WordPress coding has cost them a lot of time trying to detect the flaw in their coding. It is actually easier said than done. But you don’t want to be that person who spends ages trying to correct their flaws; prevention is better than cure or so they say. Get the standards right from the start.

It is always difficult to grasp the standards at the beginning but with a lot of practice that may include making a couple of mistakes; you become better and avoid the mistakes. What is the importance of observing the standards to the latter? Good coding that has been done the right way will be easy to read, be clear of the common coding errors and the maintenance of the codes can be done easily. As mentioned earlier, you don’t want to be committing small coding errors.

The good news is, the standards for coding on WordPress are available in the WordPress handbook and is divided according to the programming language you want to use. Furthermore, you will get examples to guide you through. These standards include HTML Coding standards, PHP Coding Standards, CSS Coding Standards, and JavaScript Coding Standards. This means that if you are panning on using the different programming languages to code on WordPress, you should be ready to understand their respective coding standards as well.

You should think for WordPress Themes. Standard Coded WordPress Themes are better than the other Marketplace Themes. All the Themes of D5 Creation are coded maintaining all WordPress Standards.

2. Function name Collisions

This is one of the most common errors in coding that most programmers commit. It is common because the error is easy to commit. Function name collision occurs when you name a function using a name that you have already defined for another function. Function name collisions should be avoided like a plague. If you are one of those who find it difficult to avoid the name collision, I have two simple ways that will help you avoid name collisions.

• Use prefixes

One simple way of avoiding name collisions when coding is by using prefixes when naming a function. Use simple but unique prefixes derived easily, for example, from the name of the plugin that you are using. For illustration, if the name of your plugin is ‘WordPress Smart Plugin’, you could prefix your function using wsp_.

• Wrap in Classes

This is another way of avoiding repetition of function names. You could easily prefix the class name and wrap all the other plugin functions inside of the class. This will not only help you avoid the collision of function names, it will also keep your coding neat and organised. One smart way of doing this is by using the singleton pattern.

3. Commenting on Codes

It is a common experience to get lost when you have a long tread of codes that you are working on. It has happened to me many times. That is why I recommend that you comment on the codes that you use to help you know what you were actually doing and what the code does. You may not see the importance of this in the beginning but it will become clear as your coding develops.

Consider a scenario where you have a very long thread of codes on your WordPress. You might need to maintain the coding and that may include changing something small in your coding as well. This might make it difficult to locate the exact code that you would want to alter. However, commenting on the codes that you have used by stating what the codes actually do will ease the search.

In addition, WordPress is more or less a collaborative CMS where other developers may look into your code and could easily use your help to make good decisions and go the right way. There are various ways you could use to comment on your functions such as the PHPDocsintax. Using Sublime + Dcoblockr in the comment includes what the code does and what it returns when run.

4. Security Tips

Security is mandatory in almost every aspect of life. This is also true in coding. With programming, a little insecurity could be an avenue for hacking. When your plugin or theme becomes very popular, the hackers tend to locate the origin and find ways to crack it, putting the sites that use your WordPress security measure to be observed are:

• Prevent XSS – this is done by sanitizing data input and data output depending on the context in which it is used. Generally, do not trust any input or output data before sanitization. Functions at a greater risk of being hacked. This necessitates taking security seriously.
• Do not allow direct access to your files – the hackers will use any small PHP error in your coding to mess your site.
• Delete all warnings and notices – hackers not only consider the PHP errors valuable to them, they also take advantage of any warnings and notices. Use the debug mode while coding your plugins.
• Prevent cross-site forgeries by using nonce values. This is the short form of numbers once used.

Conclusion

I believe that after keeping all the factors discussed in this article in check – Coding standards, Commenting on Codes, avoiding function names collision and observing the security measures – you will get the best out of WordPress coding.