Professional WordPress: Design and Development

In the past 2 or 3 years I have reviewed and read so many books by "WordPress Aficionados" that are nothing but fluff and contain no useful information for professional programmers seeking the hidden gateway into the maze that is WordPress that just the thought of those books makes my stomach churn. This is THE BOOK for programmers. I'm only 5 chapters into it and, as a professional software engineer, I am completely enthralled by it. Literally every page answers questions that I have always had about WordPress. I've been working with WordPress for years - mostly on previously built sites and have managed to muddle my way through theme modifications and functionality enhancements (without hacking the core!) with successful results, but I have never had a level of comfort working in WordPress, from a developer perspective that I've desired, but which I am now achieving, compliments of this book. These authors have done a SPECTACULAR JOB of presenting the information critically needed by software developers in a logical and precise manner that not only renders instant value, but opens the doors and exposes paths to gain further knowledge by demystifying the Codex and providing alternatives. Brad Williams, David Damstra, and Hal Stern - Kudos to you all! Thank you, truly, for writing such a wonderful book on WordPress!

WROX books, especially the Professional series, are the technical books geeks can't live without. And for good reason. Whatever the subject, they are clear, thorough and filled with information you didn't know you needed. Than the Lord for Kindles though, hauling a shelf full of these around would be a nightmare. This is not a book for beginners on how to use WordPress to publish your blog, though it does cover that as a small part of the book. This is rather a book to help those who develop WordPress sites either as a profession or part of their daily work load. While it would be rare for anyone to find the entire book applies to them, it is extremely rare for someone to find that none of the book applies. This book thoroughly covers WordPress architecture and development to the platform for any web developer. Some of the books topics assume you are familiar with programming principles, as well as HTML and CSS, and that you know at least a little about web development and PhP. If you are short in those areas, there are plenty of good books and online tutorials to bring you up to speed. Since the code discussed in the book is available for download, you can learn many of the techniques simply by modifying existing code snippets and adding them to your own work. If there is any negative to this book, it's not the fault of the book but rather the speeds at which publishers and platform developers work. While WROX is quick to publish books, and the authors in the Professional series are usually writing with pre-release software, by the nature of the publishing cycle versus the speed of the development cycle, most published books start going out of date the moment they ship. Fortunate, WROXD keeps publishing updated versions, such as this one, being the third edition.

As other users have noted, there is a lack of wordpress books that are more oriented towards actual web development. This is definitely geared toward a more technical crowd, so if you have no experience with databases or programming or web development, then this may not be the best resource. I am familiar with java, VB, and C# but little to no experience with PHP, CSS, and wed databases, so this book was just what I needed. There is a long "getting started" portion, which I supplemented with some video tutorials online but it was good to have a print resource alongside to fill in the gaps.

Awesome book. It really explains details of how WordPress works starting with the Loop in perfect detail. It is easy to read. I was looking for a book that would provide an explanation of the Loop and all the other parts of WordPress in an organized way, and this books has been fantastic in doing that in a short amount of time for me. It also provides you with the the URLs of the most important sources of information of WordPress depending on what you are looking for. For example, the books provides specific URLs for the best Wordpress Codex pages with information about functions, tag templates, Plugin API , Shortcode, Options API, Rewrite API, etc. This has been extremely valuable since WordPress documentation is huge but not very well organized. I read other books that I though would provide the level of detail that one requires to understand the under the hood workings of WP, but this is by far the very best one I have found. I highly recommend it.

Best WP book for devs out there. Really, outside the dated plugin dev book, the ONLY advanced WP book out there. Which is surprising given the number of sites powered by WP. You can find literally dozens of HTML 5 books, hundreds of CSS 3 books, many XML... you get the picture. Even tho WP powers upwards of millions of sites, plus their own .com sites, there are very few "actual" books. By that, I simply mean lots of folks are taking advantage of the 'self-publication' route and producing $3.00 64 page booklets that do little more than present sections of the codex, often replete with misspellings and missing information, as 'real' books. They aren't. I get that WP moves so fast that to research and write and publish a book means that four new versions have been released since the idea first came to you, but damn. I saw and Advanced WP book come out, but it was half-complete and roundly attacked. The WP Bible's not been updated since Snowden was still in America. Too long. Still - that isn't about THIS book. This book is in the third edition and has been updated for WP all the way through 4.1. Nice! Lots of good, in-depth and in-detail chapters. Just what is needed. I liked it enough that this is my second copy - I have a 2nd Edition, too. Pick it up.

I came to this book as a programmer who has some WordPress sites but have never looked at WordPress internals. The book filled in a lot of missing details about how WordPress works. The beginning chapters discuss the Core functionality of WordPress and why developing locally may make sense. Middle chapters go more in depth on the database, posts, and plugins. The later chapters cover some more advanced functionality I was not even aware existed such as Multi-site features. The authors have a great perspective on WordPress and are fully aware that WordPress gets a bad reputation sometimes. Chapter 13 took an in depth look at security on WordPress and explains clearly why WordPress is secure. Many of the "hacked" WordPress sites were by people who never upgraded their WordPress. The authors state explicitly when some security feature is option or whether it is mandatory. WordPress was put in perspective well and the authors tell you which plugins are recommended. There were good high level overviews backed up by lower level details. The book reads consistently throughout as the three authors were able to find one voice. If you are interested in learning more about the WordPress ecosystem and internals, this book is an excellent choice.

A little out dated. But still a great book of knowledge.

This book really lets you get under the hood and make Wordpress your own. If you know php and html then this book will help with customization of the loop and more.