So when I was looking at how to learn plugin development, I said one way would be to apprentice with an expert. As I mentioned, these experts are pretty busy but many of them have written courses or tutorials to share their experience. Part of the challenge though is identifying the best people to learn from.
I came across a article by Chris Lema (definitely, a WordPress expert) about learning plugin development the “right way.” Very timely for me to have found this. His position was that you need to make sure you learn from the right people. His criteria for identifying tutorials written by the right people:
- Are the developers who wrote them constant learners?
- Are the developers who wrote them trusted in the community?
His (very) short list at the time (article was from 2013) was:
While I’m sure he may have a few more to add now (I am a little curious), those 3 are still solid choices. I asked Chris via a comment on his post who he would add to his list today. So I will update the post with his response.
Luckily for me, the tutorials from Williamson and McFarlin already popped up in my research and I’m starting with McFarlin’s so I’m on the right track.
He did suggest building rapport and trust with the right kinds of people so that when you have written some code of your own you can get feedback. I’m just at the start of this journey, but I am making some contacts in the broader WP community, so I’m looking forward to meeting some more of the right people.