Testing a plugin for functionality is a remarkably difficult thing to automate. Some (many?) plugins don’t do anything on their own: they require the user to edit their template tags, for example. How can the plugin manager verify that those work?
Yes, a lot of amateurs are writing plugins. I think that’s absolutely wonderful: WordPress is a great project with which to begin coding. I cut my coding teeth on WordPress plugins; and I’m delighted to see so many other people trying their hand. No, they (myself included) won’t always produce the best plugins. Sometimes they’ll break. Even professional programmers make mistakes that slip through some times.
Just remember to keep regular backups of your database and template files. If you do, there’s very little risk of long-term trouble from any particular plugin.
sure thing, that’s all good and ticklish that so many people are making attempts to build plugins however, it’s not good on the other end when you activate one of the plugins and it destroys your entire wordpress. I agree you should make backups but it’s the princple of the thing. Not everyone is cut out to do coding and to think so is foolish. I’m all for people trying new things but not at the expense of others š
I wouldn’t make a plugin and take the chance of messing someones stuff up not unless i really knew how to make it properly.
Keep in mind that the majority of plugins out there were created by the author for their personal use. It was first and foremost meant to work with their blog. It is usually then beautified and shipped to the world to use with the caveat that it release “as-is”.
It is unreasonable to expect very plugin author to know how his/her plugin is going to be used. Best practices in coding apart, sometimes thing will break, that’s inevitable.
To blame “amateur” coders for this is wholy unfair. And frankly, if you have such distrust of plugins that are out there, you have two options. 1) Write your own, 2) Verify every plugin you download to ensure that it is going to work and not break anything.
Regards
which leaves us back to this one question that has plaqued humanity since the beginning of time, WHEN WILL ALL THE MADNESS OF DIVERSITY GO AWAY lol
Ok troll..leave now…shoo!
Ongakukaku, clearly WordPress is not the platform [nor the community] for you. Use Blogger.
my recommendation is if someone is going to create a plugin, make sure all it is a folder that you insert into the plugin folder and activate (period). And also make sure it can be revised with each wordpress update, this should be a given
as for wordpress not being the platform for me, you obviouslyl wasn’t understanding my post, it wasn’t saying wordpress is bad, it was refering to those who make plugins that don’t work or require wp file editing. Perhaps WP is not the platform for you if you can’t take alittle feedback spanky.
oh and i’m no troll š perhaps you are the troll or an idiot lol
There’s no need for name calling. It doesn’t matter who said what first: it’s simply not needed here.
ongakukaku: as a plugin author, I can tell you that I do try to test my plugins; but as Cypher mentioned, many of my plugins were written to solve my own itch (or written upon request from others with specific itches to scratch). My testing may not include the scenario(s) in which you might use my plugins, and as such it might break. Them’s the breaks.
Tracking WordPress updates can be a challenge, as the internals change subtly across revisions — sometimes without proper notification to the larger development community. If you discover that a plugin doesn’t work with a new(er) WordPress release, politely notify the plugin author. Chances are that the author will be receptive to feedback.
And as I said in my original reply, some plugins require modifications to template and theme files. These changes should be preserved through WordPress upgrades, though, so the real burden is actually quite small.
This plugin business is going to get out of hand if some standards are not applied to plugin design and submission.
Free, voluntary and hobbyist should not mean questionable implementation and bad design.
At the very least there should be some coding, documentation and compatibility guidelines plugins must meet to be considered ‘official’ or ‘approved’ WordPress plugins. If some plugin designers will not meet them, their plugins can be put in a different category.
I can illustrate my point here clearly. The WordPress Plugins Repository is built around trac and subversion, a fine system for source code and project management but I am yet to see any submission in which the authors use the diff system to display the changes to be made to the stock WordPress files.
Coupled with some design notes and caveats this would simply eliminate the need for most of the installation instructions.
It is nice to see enthusiasts and hobbyists submitting their changes to the community, but without more formality it is only going to frustrate those who want to go beyond the basic installation.
“Formality” in the way of diffs is a very very bad idea. Most plugin authors specifically cater to the “lowest common denominator” because it’s easy for the folks at the other end to parse through the newbie-friendly instructions to find out what needs to be done. It is nearly impossible for a new user to figure out what to do with a diff.
There do exists guidelines and documentation for writing plugins. Whether these are adhered to is strictly up to the plugin author.
Last I checked, the only “WordPress Approved” plugins are those bundled with the download package. All other plugins — whether hosted at wp-plugins.org, listed in the Codex list of plugins, or pasted into threads here — are made available solely “as is”. Caveat emptor.
I am quite sure that most people can the understand colored diff output displayed in trac. They are much clearer than their written text instructions which say – Look for the line starting ‘so so so’ around ‘here here here’ and replace it with ‘this this this’.
All it requires are tags off a trunk consisting off a fixed standard release. Trac can display them quite nicely. If one of the lead developers can release a sample plugin and display them in trac that should go on a long way in showcasing the benefits.
If every up to date plugin can be treated as a tag in Subversion and displayed in Trac that will go a long way in making them transparent and easier to update when changes are made to the main WordPress files.
The contents of the plugins themselves shouldn’t be that important, just the changes to the base WordPress files.
Respecting the individuals who make plugins who know what they are doing is a given and much appreciated of course, and I understand that most plugins were created for the author primarily but shouldn’t wordpress set up a wordpress only plugin team ? Seems to make sense.
No doubt eventually, there will come a time where there is a price tag attached to wordpress, its free now but they always start out free and eventually charge which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We always get what we pay for lol. My thought is to keep WordPress not only evolving but improving it and fixing any bugs along the way, etc.
So far it has great potential but as it is now what makes it less great is there isn’t enough plugin functionality that will allow us to do what we want to do with it. You know the feeling you get when its 85% fantastic and its the other few % that isn’t that just knock the greatness out of it. I sometimes feel WP is only partially complete or perhaps it’s not WP just the scarcity of useful plugins.
I often notice in the forums, there are many of the same items being requested over and over again. Usually all someone will do is recomend editing some code to WP files. Personally, I’d like to see less code changing advice and more dependable and fully functionaly plugins.
Adding a plugin inside the plugin folder and make it active is quite impressive to say the least and very easy to do. I realize that people make plugins for their own itch but seriously, if you are using wordpress for your site or blog, then why not go the extra distance and make your plugins spark like magic in wordpress for the rest of us š
perhaps there should be a plugin shop where you can purchase dependable plugins that work with WP ? ? who’s buying? he he
Is there a reason why some posts display the originating IP and some don’t?
