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I've been disappointed by the quality of many of the plugins listed on the site for a while. I often have to rely on plugins I have used before, read of on HN i

I've been disappointed by the quality of many of the plugins listed on the site for a while. I often have to rely on plugins I have used before, read of on HN in the past, or ask other developers--rather than going to the plugins page. Granted the plugins I end up using are also in the list I would have seen, there is nothing separating them from the really bad ones. I wonder if the number of bad plugins comes from the relatively small disparity between being able to use jQuery and writing a plugin. jQuery's whole premise is being an easy to use programming language. In other models (wordpress for example) the bottom 50% (or more, I don't know, I'm just making up numbers) of "administrators" would have no idea how to make a plugin. Verses the bottom 15% (again completely fake numbers, just for demonstration) of jQuery users may be unable to do so.

mberning 15y ago
jQuery isn't a programming language and most 'plugins' for it are simply libraries that have a dependency on jQuery. That's where the glut of low quality 'plugins' comes from. Anybody that knows a little javascript can write some garbage code and then turn around and call it a jQuery plugin.
code_duck 15y ago
A jQuery 'plugin' can be written in one line... the level of functionality one might provide is much lower than the minimum functionality found in a WordPress plugin.
- dangrossman 15y ago
  A WordPress plugin can be just one line too. There used to be a very popular one whose only job was to disable the WordPress filter that turned line breaks into paragraph tags. <?php remove_filter('the_content', 'wpautop'); ?>
  - code_duck 15y ago
    Aha, good point. So there isn't really any skill difference between the minimum jQuery plugin and the minimum WordPress plugin.
    - brokentone 15y ago
      Right, but my point was of the difference in disparity between the minimum plugin and minimum usage. To use jQuery is closer to creating a plugin than using wordpress is to creating a plugin.
      - code_duck 15y ago
        Is that what you should be comparing, though? I think there's an impedance mismatch between WordPress and jQuery. WordPress is not seen primarily as a programming tool. 'Using' jQuery could mean visiting a website that employs jQuery which doesn't bring you any closer to writing anything. What we mean is people who program with jQuery, though. The average WordPress user (say, an author or site owner) doesn't do any programming at all. A user who does do programming, like someone who customizes WordPress for people, could write one of these one line plugins. Ultimately it's comparing JavaScript to PHP, and I don't think one is more difficult.

mberning 15y ago

jQuery isn't a programming language and most 'plugins' for it are simply libraries that have a dependency on jQuery. That's where the glut of low quality 'plugins' comes from. Anybody that knows a little javascript can write some garbage code and then turn around and call it a jQuery plugin.

code_duck 15y ago

A jQuery 'plugin' can be written in one line... the level of functionality one might provide is much lower than the minimum functionality found in a WordPress plugin.

dangrossman 15y ago
A WordPress plugin can be just one line too. There used to be a very popular one whose only job was to disable the WordPress filter that turned line breaks into paragraph tags. <?php remove_filter('the_content', 'wpautop'); ?>
- code_duck 15y ago
  Aha, good point. So there isn't really any skill difference between the minimum jQuery plugin and the minimum WordPress plugin.
  - brokentone 15y ago
    Right, but my point was of the difference in disparity between the minimum plugin and minimum usage. To use jQuery is closer to creating a plugin than using wordpress is to creating a plugin.
    - code_duck 15y ago
      Is that what you should be comparing, though? I think there's an impedance mismatch between WordPress and jQuery. WordPress is not seen primarily as a programming tool. 'Using' jQuery could mean visiting a website that employs jQuery which doesn't bring you any closer to writing anything. What we mean is people who program with jQuery, though. The average WordPress user (say, an author or site owner) doesn't do any programming at all. A user who does do programming, like someone who customizes WordPress for people, could write one of these one line plugins. Ultimately it's comparing JavaScript to PHP, and I don't think one is more difficult.