Common Coding Mistakes in WordPress Plugins

While most people using WordPress are happy just to have an excelent blogging platform, there are some people we support who are seriously in to developing web based applications, and tweeking WordPress for the good and benefit of all.

While looking for the solution to a problem on a WordPress site we are setting up, we came accross this gem from Ozh Richard called Top 10 Most Common Coding Mistakes in WordPress Plugins. Actually, to give full credit, there are about eighteen common mistakes listed, and we have probably made (no surely we mean seen!) all of them at some time.

The top ten most frequent bad code bits are listed here for a quick reference, but for the detail and a good laugh, visit Top 10 Most Common Coding Mistakes in WordPress Plugins

  1. It’s not a plugin, it’s a mess
  2. Way too generic function names
  3. What? 87 new rows in the option table?
  4. You create new tables for what?
  5. No uninstall function
  6. Custom javascript or CSS added on each and every admin pages
  7. Plugin forms with no security, or nonces misunderstood
  8. Actions triggered from unchecked GET data
  9. Trust user input and pass it to SQL
  10. Localization done wrong

To read the full post, visit and enjoy Top 10 Most Common Coding Mistakes in WordPress Plugins.

While you are at it, check out the succinct The Definitive Guide To Using WordPress as a CMS on the same site