Five years ago I created a monster and that monster’s name was “WordPress Code Snippet” (notice the improper spelling of WordPress). I was indeed a very naive plugin developer when I created it. Looking at the code today since my last revision four years ago makes me cringe and make me feel bad for the 7800+ that have downloaded it.
There are so many things wrong with it that I wish I had done differently:
- Use custom post types instead of a custom database table. (This would be good for backups and multisite installations.)
- Use WordPress’ built-in CSS and JavaScript libraries.
- Use shortcodes instead of pasting in comment tags that get filtered.
- Not run a database setup every time the object is instantiated. (Doh!)
- Enqueue CSS and JS correctly.
- Add a TinyMCE button to insert shortcode.
- Use WordPress’ AJAX functionality instead of doing my own thing.
- Better documentation.
- Spell WordPress correctly…