WordPress is a widely popular CMS that has helped many businesses and individuals to create their websites from scratch – even those with zero experience in web development. All in all, WordPress is said to host over 34% of the world’s websites on the internet, including Microsoft.
What is WordPress?
WordPress is a content management platform that was initially created in 2003 for bloggers over the internet. Flash-forward nearly two decades later, it has become a powerful and flexible tool to turn any business owner’s website idea into reality. It provides a variety of impressive plugins and add-ons for creators to test out and familiarize. WordPress’ fringe benefit is that it is highly accommodating of those acquiring new technical skills and knowledge to modify and update their websites or blogs. Its ability to scale alongside its users gives them the opportunity to learn and push the limits with WordPress.
Its massive directory of plugins and themes makes it a primary tool for creating any kind of feature-packed website one can think of. It is the perfect platform for fresh or experienced developers looking to expand their skillset and gradually build their portfolio. However, quality also plays a significant role in creating a solid website; it means that your source code on WordPress is presentable, can perform its function accurately, and is up-to-date with the latest coding practices.
In this post, we will delve deeper into the standards and practices of WordPress coding so by the end of this article you are familiar with its guidelines and framework. Whether you are part of a team of developers or running a one-man show, these pointers will put you on the right track and help you examine your source code easily.
Code Formatting
Regardless of the scale of your project, the format of your code reflects its quality. Having a well thought out and properly formatted coding highlights its value and makes it a lot more presentable.
A well-organized code is a lot easier to maintain than a chaotic cluster. Coming back to your coding in a week’s or years’ time and finding a disordered mess would make it difficult to understand and highlight areas of improvement. Taking the time to carve out a structure for your code saves both time and effort in the future. Similarly, if senior management requests to look at your source code and finds a mess, they would require hours to understand what is going on and this might place a gap in your project’s completion. Also, presenting a well-spaced out and neat code makes it easier for users to track errors. Thus, following WordPress’ standards-compliant formatting ensures a reduced number of pauses in achieving objectives and makes it easier for a new developer to interpret and navigate through the website’s code.
Naming Convention
Ultimately, it is all about making your code as readable as possible. Naming conventions should help to clarify the purpose behind their entity.
When using functions and variables in WordPress, it is required to use lower case and if there are more words, separate them using an underscore. According to the Coding Standards, WordPress web development team members are recommended to not abbreviate variables unnecessarily.
When using defining classes capitalize the class name and in the case of multiple words, capitalize each name and separate the classes using an underscore. In simpler words, classes should be considered as nouns and must represent the purpose they compress to execute it accurately.
Indentation
The rules of Coding Standards outline that the indentation throughout the coding should always highlight the logical structure of the code and that the beginning of new blocks should start with tabs and not spaces. This makes your code more readable and visually appealing, as well as helps in maintaining its compatibility across numerous editors.
One thing to keep in mind is that spaces can be used everywhere else but tabs should be used at the beginning of the line.
Quotes
The general rule is to always use single quotes to define your strings, but it is your choice to use single or double quotes. Normally, the preferable setting for using double quotes is when you’re required to evaluate a variable. While HTML attributes work just fine enclosed in single quotes, they are more commonly seen with double quotes. If you need to place quotes within quotes, then you put single quotes within double, or vice versa.
Conditionals
The Ternary Operator or also known as the if/else conditional statement is only used when the conditional is of the simplest form and when there is a single if block and a single else block. Another point to consider is that ternary operators are always used when testing if the statement is true, not false.
However, when carrying out logical comparisons consisting of variables place the variable on the right side and the constants or function calls on the left side. On the other, if neither side consists of a variable then the order is not necessary. These are called Yoda conditions.
Brace Style
According to the WordPress Coding Standards, single line conditional blocks can be exempted from braces while multiline conditional blocks should always include braces. But, in case of single line loops, braces should be used regardless it consists of a single line block or a multiline block.
When your coding has a really long block, consider breaking it into two or more blocks, functions or methods to increase overall readability and minimize difficulty.
In Summary
Hopefully, towards the end of this guide you will have a better grip on how you can improve your coding skills regardless of your general development know-how. Emphasizing focus on clarity and readability, naturally improves the quality of your code and ensures that it is understandable by any onlooker. These coding standards are a vital resource for WordPress users and developers, both fresh and existing. While it takes some time to get a grip of these practices, following them will enable users to create exemplary customizable websites with top-quality source code. Good luck!