For awhile, like years now, whenever anyone asks me what I want to do, if I don’t over-engineer the answer, I say “write code and write about writing code.” So, anyway I’ve been working on a pivot for Plugin Machine and that’s the basic plan.
Last year I launched “Josh as a Service” which has been going really well. While the plugin generator has been helpful to a lot of people, it’s not what makes me money, which I mainly make from retainer clients that need an engineer that understands WordPress and can help with product and development.
The consulting services are going well, clients are happy and I’m happy to help. The consulting gives me a way to help folks in smaller units of Josh. With the success of my consulting services, I’ve discovered that small teams often require the expertise of a director of engineering or staff engineer, but don’t have the budget for it.
In this post, I will explain what that means, and different ways I can help you improve your WordPress plugin development. Over the next few months, I will introduce membership plans for this site — a free plan with basic plugin generator and paid plan with access to courses and AI-powered plugin building assistant.
What Is Plugin Machine Version Two
Services
If you need assistance with developing or introducing your new product to the WordPress ecosystem, I can offer my expertise. With over a decade of experience working with WordPress, including involvement in the development of several widely used plugins and contributing to WordPress core, I am well-equipped to provide guidance in this area. I have built SaaS products with Laravel and WordPress. I am also very proficient in React and have worked with it in various capacities, including in the WordPress block editor, and headless NextJs sites.
I offer two hour consulting calls via Zoom, one time code reviews and ongoing support for your developers. Learn more on the services page.
Courses and Plugin Generator
When I started working on Plugin Machine v2, I knew I needed new template plugins. I wanted them to be for real, how I work, so I made a mindful decision to get distracted by the AI-writing plugin instead of just building the same thing, but better. The obvious move is to use AI to generate code, which would be fun. I am getting there.
When I made the AI-writing plugin, I wrote a short course about refactoring WordPress plugins. Currently that’s only available for developers who work at a company that have hired me for ongoing consulting. I like this model, I write about how I actually solved a problem and make sure it’s relevant to the engineers I’m helping. It’s a great way for me to generate content, and ensure what I’m writing is relevant to people who make WordPress plugins.
I will launch membership plans that allow individuals and teams to have full access to my courses. Members will be able to post comments and request code examples relevant to what they are working on.
A lot of the development I do for clients these days is helping scale a WordPress site or writing PHP and infrastructure as code for WordPress and Laravel. I’m still making WordPress plug-ins and sharing what I learned through Plugin Machine, which I built so I could start new plugins quickly, and version 2 has improved templates and will allow you to use other Git repositories as the template.
Members Get Access To Courses
I have several mini-courses on WordPress plugin development. Members will get access to these courses and the ability to post comments and request code samples. I may also package these courses as stand alone products, members will get access to them all.
I will probably have a course on building membership sites with WordPress around the same time. I’ve been helping maintain an awesome membership site – Interintellect — for a while, and I have opinions. BTW check out our site, it’s a really cool community with great discussions.
In terms of courses, I’m going to cover WordPress and React, but also Laravel. Like a lot of folks who got started with WordPress, I like to build applications with Laravel. If you’re building a saaS with a WordPress plugin, I’ve built and helped build a few of those, I want to share what I’ve learned.
WordPresss developers who want to learn PHP should learn Laravel, at least enough to make a todo app. Learning Laravel basics is great, because it is a great choice for a SaaS product and it is in the same language as WordPress. Also, the way they do modern PHP is excellent, what I’m trying to do and teach is to adapt as much of Laravel’s architecture as possible in WordPress, without breaking the important WordPress conventions or forgetting how different building a web app vs a plugin is.
I will probably have a course on building membership sites with WordPress around the same time. I’ve been helping maintain an awesome membership site – Interintellect — for awhile, and I have opinions. BTW check out our site, it’s a really cool community with great discussions.
New Plugins and Plugin Templates
For Plugin Machine v2, I have created two new templates.
The first template is “core style plugin” that is based on several feature plugins from WordPress core, that use the latest development packages for testing plugins. The second template “modern plugin” is based on my AI-writing plugin and uses composer and PSR-style code.
The modern template is what I like to use. I don’t belive the standards for WordPress core should be applied unless you‘re working on WordPress core, which isn’t what I do. If you disagree, that’s fine, it’s free software, I have an option for you.
Let Me Know How I Can Help
Anyway, I’m a super nerd for this stuff and people like the consulting services and keep asking for courses, so that’s what I’m doing. I’m going to launch v2 of the plugin generator, so I can make more plugins and open-source tools to help developers and have more example code for courses and AI-powered plugin writing assistant.
My main focus will be on offering consulting services to clients in need of a skilled WordPress engineer. In this blog post, I have outlined the different ways in which I can help you improve your WordPress plugin development. Furthermore, I am excited to announce the upcoming launch of membership plans for my site, including a free plan with basic plugin generator and a paid plan with access to courses and an AI-powered plugin building assistant. If you’re looking to take your WordPress development skills to the next level, I encourage you to sign up for my membership plans and take advantage of the resources I have to offer.
Featured image by me, via WordPress photos. This post was written by me, with help from ChatGPT and Upcyled Found Objects.
