Chapter 1. Preparing for WordPress Development

Since you have picked up this book, you are likely to fall into one of two overall categories: developers who are new to WordPress, or WordPress users keen to start or improve their WordPress development skills. No matter which camp you lie in, this book will help you down that path. This book will show you how to customize WordPress using plugins by providing well-structured code and by explaining how the code interacts with the WordPress application. It introduces a variety of development techniques drawn from a range of real-world scenarios that will give you, the reader, a practical understanding of how to write, debug, and deploy WordPress plugins.

Together we will delve through a series of increasingly challenging topics covering a range of scenarios that a developer is likely to encounter when developing and maintaining a WordPress 3 site. While you may read the book from start to finish, each chapter strives to be a self-contained topic for easier reference.

It is expected that the readers of this book have some knowledge of programming concepts and a working understanding of web applications, including HTML and basic CSS. Familiarity with WordPress is also recommended.