One of the reasons why I chose to go with a WordPress website a year ago was that they offered what are called plugins. Plugins are small programs that become integrated within the WordPress application and allow the owner/developer to extend the number of features and enhancements that a given website may have. These plugins are written by developers for various reasons. Most plugins are free though some of the more complex plugins have either a one time fee or an annual fee to use them.
The people at WordPress test these plugins and, if they pass certain tests and standards, the developers of these plugins post them on wordpress.org for others to use. The developers of these plugins have to provide support for them and test/certify them to be compatible with future versions of WordPress. In theory, this sounds like a win-win scenario for everyone.
And, in most cases, it is. I currently have eighteen plugins on this site. And most of them work very well. And I think that they have enhanced this site greatly. I envy the men and women that write the code for these plugins. Though I was a developer/QA tester/System Administrater in the past. I am not well versed in this type of development. So I have to rely on their expertise. And I think that they do a great job.
So what are the bad and ugly sides of plugins? Read on and you will find out. Between 2015 and 2017 I developed and maintained a WordPress web site for a volunteer trail maintenance group. It was the first time that I had utilized WordPress. Before setting the site up I bought a “WordPress for Dummies” book, read it, then set the site up all in one weekend. At the end of 2017 I was ready to give the site up as I was getting out of trail maintenance. Two weeks before I was to give up the site it crashed. I worked with the web hosting company and, to make a long story short, the reason that it crashed was that the developer of the plugin was doing updates to that plugin at the same time the the hosting company was either backing up or doing updates. It corrupted the database. I had to rebuild the site from scratch. I got it rebuilt just in time to hand it off.
Fast forward to 2024. Whenever WordPress updates it’s core code, the developers of plugins are supposed to certify that their plugins will work with the updated core code. Most developers do. However, sometimes, small, quirky things happen to plugins after a core code update even if a developer certifies their plugin as compatible. And sometimes, for various reasons, a developer will stop supporting their plugins(s). This often leads to a plugin to stop working at some point.
Right now I have two plugins that are not being supported anymore. One is the plugin that randomly displays the ads on this site. It works OK at this point but I need to consider my options here. The other is the vertical image slider that I use on my trip logs. I noticed that it is starting to act quirky. I heavilly utilize both of these plugins.
So I will monitor the ad banner plugin and casually look for an alternative. As for the vertical image slider, I will probably go through all of my trip logs and convert all of the image sliders to just staticly display the images. That’s going to be a lot of work.
When it comes to a website you can’t just “set it and forget it.” Things outside of your control are constantly changing. If one doesn’t maintain the site, things will eventually break and, at some point, the site will fail.
When it comes to testing these plugins there are only so many test scenarios that you can test a plugin or any type of code against. Bugs will happen. It’s just a matter of time. Vigilance and constant monitoring of a website’s health are the best way to keep a website up and running successfully.
Mike C
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