Platform Plugin Development @ WordSesh 2021

I first met Brian Richards of WPSessions at WordCamp Grand Rapids 2014, and a hallway track conversation with him, Chris Klosowski, Topher + Cate DeRosia, and a handful of others actually helped me make the decision to embrace remote working, which led me to joining 10up that fall.

Beyond having a profound impact on my personal career, Brian and WPSessions also put on the free WordSesh conference, a virtual event with some of the biggest names in WordPress, and this year I’m fortunate to count myself among their ranks for WordSesh 2021!

Considerations & Concerns for Platform Plugin Development

This will be the second time in as many weeks that I’ll be giving this talk, shortly after its premiere at WordCamp NEO 2021.

One of the major strengths of WordPress is the ability to develop small plugins to solve particular needs. Whether you want to re-arrange menus or add a new dashboard widget, WordPress gives you the tools to make small, focused plugins to customize nearly anything.

This paradigm changes when your code is running across tens of thousands of customer sites, however. Suddenly, you have to coordinate which features are active based on the site. Is this a WooCommerce site? Does this feature exist in this version of WordPress? Has the site owner already installed another plugin to handle this piece of functionality?

In this session, we’ll be taking a deep dive into the architecture, development decisions, and release process behind the “Must-Use” (MU) plugin that runs on every WordPress site across the Nexcess Managed Applications platform. Attendees will learn about the practice and challenges of building a WordPress plugin at-scale, as well as how to better handle conflicts in their own plugins of any size.

As you may recall, I was invited to talk about the WooCommerce Custom Orders Table at WooSesh 2019 (the WooCommerce-focused sister conference to WordSesh), and I had a great time and learned a lot from the other speakers. Brian and WPSessions put on high-quality, well-produced events so I highly recommend you get your free ticket to WordSesh 2021!