mark.bockenstedt.net » Development

WordPress Gets Admin Facelift

Mark — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:15:38 +0000

WordPress 2.7 was officially released yesterday. There are a number of pretty dramatic (yet exciting) changes on the admin side. Here are my favorites:

Upgrading becomes much easier
Threaded comments, and better comment layout in general
New admin look makes navigation quicker
Compatible with mu

This was really just a test post to make sure mu still works. I performed the upgrade here in about 10 minutes and it seems like nothing was adversely affected.

More mu Updates Coming

Mark — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 22:35:48 +0000

Look up – directly above this text. See it? That’s one of mu’s newest features. I decided that as a gesture of convenience, mu will now create a short link anytime you publish a post. Since it usually already does it anyway, I decided to make it automatic and give you the chance to display it wherever you want on your posts.

All you’ll have to do is make a small change to the posts table in your database to add a place for this link. When you publish a post, mu will grab the short link (from the service of your choosing) and hang onto it so your readers don’t have to waste time getting one themselves. Hooray convenience!

There will be two functions in the next release of mu, one that returns the text and one that displays it directly. The other treat in store for mu 0.4b* will be URL shortening using Cli.gs. I’ve decided to build it in and give you a place to enter your API key rather than make you figure out the API call by using the Custom option.

Look for the update next week – I’d like to make sure it’s working correctly over the weekend before I release it.

* There will also be a few small bug fixes included because I’m an idiot

mu Updated

Mark — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 23:53:04 +0000

I was informed of a small flaw in the code that controls the URLs for your microblogging account settings pages (thanks Katie). It was a pretty small fix, and it’s been sent off to the SVN repo so you should be prompted to update soon.

At some point I also moved the options page from the Manage menu to the Settings menu. I also added the SQL for the database tables I forgot to include that in the initial release, so some people might have had issues with updates not getting sent out. Instructions for installation are in the README.

You can get mu here if you’re interested.

Should Programmers Use Older Hardware?

Mark — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 15:30:13 +0000

I stumbled across a forum thread at geeks.pirillo.com where a user posed the title question: should programmers use older hardware? The rationale behind the question was that the developer would have a better feel for how the code runs on slower machines. If it runs well on slow machines, it should run even better on faster machines.

Some people argue that development isn’t a very resource-intense activity. Sure, your machine needs to be able to compile code, serve up HTTP requests, etc, but you don’t need a Corvette to do what a Neon can do. Other users rebutted, saying some applications, especially video, are resource intense and that there’s no way development can proceed without good hardware.

In my admittedly limited experiences as a web developer, I say that it generally doesn’t matter what hardware you write code on. The machine I’m using to serve up the page you’re looking at is a repurposed 6 year old Dell desktop. It’s by no means a high-end web server, but it doesn’t need to be. I can write code and test code on it just fine. I admit this viewpoint is somewhat biased due to the nature of my line of work.

In the end it’s not development, but it’s testing that dictates the amount of horsepower needed. Ideally, companies would have a dedicated test division that’s separate from the development division. The people who are responsible for testing the software would be doing so on lower-end hardware, not the developers themselves. Developers can’t do their jobs without the proper hardware and software. The testing department is responsible for giving feedback that guides performance.

Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment and let us know.

Permalinks Updated

Mark — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 22:00:11 +0000

I changed the style of permalinks today from the default to the day and name setting. This should have no ill effects on any previous permalinks and hopefully won’t cause any problems with links leading to a 404. That’s the quick PSA for the day — if you see any dead links, please let me know.

Popular Posts

Official Beta Page for mu

Mark — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:54:33 +0000

I put mu up on the WordPress plugins site yesterday and it looks like everything’s working now. This post will serve as the central point of contact for all things mu in beta stage. If you’ve got any questions, comments, suggestions, or need help, this is the place to post it. For a description of mu or to see its progression, check out the mu tag.

mu Approved by WordPress

Mark — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:24:12 +0000

I’ve applied to have mu hosted on the official WordPress plugins directory, and was approved this morning. In the next few days I’ll be working on getting everything uploaded to that site, and hopefully mu will be more visible on the official plugin page. Stay tuned, mu watchers, we’re nearing the initial release date. No we’re not, there isn’t one. Stay tuned anyway.

mu Goes Beta

Mark — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:45:45 +0000

I’ve finally reached a point where I’m comfortable dropping the source code for mu. mu’s project home will be hosted on Google Code because it’s much easier than setting up a repo and Trac. Everything you need to know will be over there, and I’ll update the blog accordingly when something noteworthy comes out.

If you want to beta test mu, you are free to download the source or check out the SVN trunk. I advise using the SVN method because it’ll make updating painless (literally ‘svn up’ to update). If you prefer source, it’s not that hard to do it that way either. If you so incline, please send me a direct message on Twitter or Plurk, or send an email to mark \at\ bockenstedt \dot\ net of your intention to use the plugin.

I Love Python

Mark — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 19:15:41 +0000

One of the characteristics of a web developer is that they’re always looking for new ways to do things. I’m no different. For the past year, I’ve primarily been using PHP to build web applications. For the most part, I don’t have any major gripes against PHP other than the syntax is inconsistent (and PEAR blows sometimes). The language I’m most comfortable with is Python, the language I learned in college.

The first book I ever used to learn Python was written by my college professor and adviser, Dr. John Zelle. The book is titled Python Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science and is just that – an introduction book. This book made it easy for me to learn Python as a first language and come to love it, even after using Java and PHP. Zelle describes Python as “simple, not simplistic”, which embodies the nature of Python as an easy to learn language, all the while maintaining its flexibility and power as a scripting language.

I’ve never really used Python much in a web development setting, so I’m going to give Django (pronounced JANG-oh) a try. Django is a web framework that helps developers build websites quickly and cleanly. I’m hoping my experiences are just that. I’ve already started getting Django installed and a server set up, which is usually the trickiest part. So far, so good…

If anyone has any Django-specific tips, leave them below.

mu Update

Mark — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:34:22 +0000

I may have finally figured out how to handle future posts and call a plugin when the post goes live. I was previously using the ‘publish_post’ action hook, but that doesn’t work for future posts. I figured that there are a lot of bloggers who publish their posts in the future, so this became a critical feature that I wanted mu to have from the beginning.

Another thing I’ve done to mu is to cut out Pownce support. I decided that I don’t want to distribute my API key, which is the only way I could get Pownce to accept messages sent to it. I still haven’t integrated ping.fm into the plugin, and I’m not entirely convinced that I want to. I personally don’t use it, but if there’s enough community support for it, I can look into it at a later date.

The final major update to mu is the inclusion of multiple URL shortening services. Every person has their preference of which service to use, so I’ve included TinyURL, bit.ly, is.gd, snurl, and ri.ms into mu. The user has the choice of which service (if any) to use in the default mu options. If there are others, they can be added pretty easily, but this should be a sufficient set for now.

As for things I’ve yet to accomplish, the last pieces of the puzzle are to verify login credentials when they’re entered and to report errors when posting. If one of the updates goes awry, it will alert the user while still sending out updates to other services.

mark.bockenstedt.net » Development

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