I am proposing a talk for WordCamp Victoria which is coming up in January 2013. The session I’d like to do is a bit more beginner than I’ve done in the past; but should fit in well with the WordPress community in Victoria. Below is my proposed session.

Plugin development 101. I’ll show beginning developers and power users how easy it is to get started with WordPress plugin development. Many WordPress tutorials out there talk about copy this or that to your functions.php file in your theme. However, it’s just as easy to create your own functionality plugin; which makes for easier to maintain code in the future that isn’t theme dependant. I’ll begin with the basics of what a plugin is and how it’s structured. I’ll explain the hooks (actions and filters API) and talk about some of the most commonly used WordPress APIs in plugins. Finally, I’ll share some resources for developers and users to further learn from. A very basic understanding of what PHP is and how it works is recommended for attendees of this session.

Let me know if you have any further ideas on what I could talk about in Victoria, or if you have any questions, using the comments below. I’m looking forward to the event!