Title: Need help reading code
Last modified: March 9, 2021

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# Need help reading code

 *  [OM2](https://wordpress.org/support/users/om2/)
 * (@om2)
 * [5 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/need-help-reading-code/)
 * Newbie coder wanting some advice!
 * I want to make a plugin.
    I thought I would take inspiration by looking at existing
   plugin code… I chose something fairly simple. I looked at 2 plugins. **OMG**.
   There’s a TON of code in there!!
 * I’m guessing the developers coded using an IDE that gave them loads of files 
   and folders when they made a new project.
 * Just wanted some general advice on how I can read and understand the code and
   ignore unnecessary files and folders? Or… is that a ‘_how long is a piece of 
   string question_‘?
 * I’m a jack of all trades – plenty of coding experience behind me… but not hard
   core and never mastered any one language.
 * The plugins that I looked at… I honestly would be better off starting from scratch
   and writing my own spec and developing myself with the help of a more experienced
   coder maybe. But then I thought… surely not… surely I should have plenty to learn
   from existing code?
 * **QUESTION**: What IDE’s would be used to develop PHP plugins?
 * Just looking for advice? 🙂
 * Thanks.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

 *  Moderator [Steven Stern (sterndata)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sterndata/)
 * (@sterndata)
 * Volunteer Forum Moderator
 * [5 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/need-help-reading-code/#post-14157765)
 * Start poking around in the developer docs at [https://developer.wordpress.org/](https://developer.wordpress.org/)
 *  [RossMitchell](https://wordpress.org/support/users/rossmitchell/)
 * (@rossmitchell)
 * [5 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/need-help-reading-code/#post-14162794)
 * I started my plugins journey with this plugin:
    [https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-csv-to-database/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-csv-to-database/)
   Author: Ruhul Amin
 *  Thread Starter [OM2](https://wordpress.org/support/users/om2/)
 * (@om2)
 * [5 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/need-help-reading-code/#post-14162975)
 * Thanks guys for both replies
    I’ll follow up those links Seems as though my course
   of action is to:
 * – Learn WP
    – Make my own code! 🙂
 *  Moderator [bcworkz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bcworkz/)
 * (@bcworkz)
 * [5 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/need-help-reading-code/#post-14163647)
 * > – Learn WP
   >  – Make my own code!
 * It’s not a sequential process IME. You’ll go back and forth between the two. 
   Learn a little more of WP. Extend your coding knowledge. Rinse and repeat.
 * A lot of plugins are very structured. Good for maintenance, less useful as a 
   learning device. I suggest pushing your own efforts as far as you can without
   worrying about other plugin code. Only when you get stuck and aren’t sure how
   to do something is when studying other plugins becomes most useful. Then your
   task is to find the relevant code among all the other structure. Once found you
   can maybe make sense of that one segment without needing to understand the rest
   of the plugin.
 *  Thread Starter [OM2](https://wordpress.org/support/users/om2/)
 * (@om2)
 * [5 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/need-help-reading-code/#post-14164269)
 * [@bcworkz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bcworkz/) thanks for the reply.
   
   I can ‘hack’ a plugin and find or change something or some functionality.
 * My big gripe was trying to understand code of plugins that I assumed would be
   super simple. I’ll follow your excellent advice though. 🙂
    Thanks.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

The topic ‘Need help reading code’ is closed to new replies.

 * In: [Developing with WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/wp-advanced/)
 * 5 replies
 * 4 participants
 * Last reply from: [OM2](https://wordpress.org/support/users/om2/)
 * Last activity: [5 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/need-help-reading-code/#post-14164269)
 * Status: not resolved

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