Comments on: WordPress Code Spelunking

By: monatomic gold

monatomic gold — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 06:46:13 +0000

A weekend spelunker myself, I couldn’t agree more, and i’m loving WP just as much!

By: Donncha

Donncha — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 10:07:35 +0000

Thank you! Just installed it and will give it a go!

BTW – I clicked the comments link from the “new comment” email and didn’t see your reply. I had to reload the page. Unfortunately I don’t know if the page was cached by Chromium or your server but I had closed the page after I left the comment yesterday.

By: Dougal

Dougal — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 02:49:00 +0000

The package they’re talking about is named “ack-grep”. I made the same mistake

Description: grep-like program specifically for large source trees.
Ack is designed as a replacement for 99% of the uses of grep. ack is intelligent about the files it searches. It knows about certain file types, based on both the extension on the file and, in some cases, the contents of the file.

Ack ignores backup files and files under CVS and .svn directories. It also highlights matches to help you see where the match was. Ack uses perl regular expressions.

By: Donncha

Donncha — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 12:13:24 +0000

I don’t think “apt-get install ack” is the same ack talked about above is it? Man page says it’s a “Kanji code converter”, nothing to do with grep or killing animals!

By: Anne

Anne — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 23:12:24 +0000

I like very much your last sentence (in your reply to my comment.) I surely rely to that too. And if it’s a unique/custom work for a valued client then the privacy can be expected…

By: Joel

Joel — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:44:57 +0000

Thank you sir! Have a million more questions, but it’s good to know that you take on projects for clients.

By: Dougal

Dougal — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 23:42:50 +0000

XML-RPC has no inherent security. You’d want to make sure your endpoint uses SSL.

By: Joel

Joel — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 20:09:15 +0000

Using many of the same pieces you’ve mentioned here, so could guess at the type of project. Thanks for bringing some new functions to my attention too.

Regarding the XML-RPC, would you recommend using this as a mechanism for secure data delivery to paying customers? Can’t think of a better person to ask.

By: Dougal

Dougal — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 04:30:52 +0000

I can’t divulge details of the plugin right now. For one thing, it’s not quite finished yet (I have to make some enhancements/fixes based on feedback from the initial review). Plus, it’s work for a client, and though I’m not technically under NDA, they own the code by contract, so I’d rather have their blessing before discussing it.

And while I understand curiosity about what the plugin might be for, it was really just a backdrop to the main point of my post, which is that working on someone else’s project often leads you to explore interesting areas that you might not have looked at otherwise.

While this particular project lead to me to investigate the things I mentioned above, other projects have similarly lead me to other areas. For example, I could have talked about a project that had me digging deep into the WordPress eXtended RSS (WXR) export file format and parsing HTML using phpQuery. Or a non-WordPress project that had me creating a lightweight MVC PHP backend, with a jQuery frontend, and AJAX in-between (plus a lot of RSS parsing with SimplePie).

It’s not the specifics of this particular project that are important. The important part is that it lead me to once again step out of my comfort zone, expand my horizons a little bit, and learn something new.

By: Anne

Anne — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 00:42:45 +0000

What is the plugin used for? Your mind is intuitive judging from the “… often finding little gems that you suspected might exist, but you weren’t sure until you actually saw them.“. I always enjoy when such matters happen to me, like a wake up call sometimes. A new one for me: spelunking.