As a newbie WordPress developer but an experienced app developer, both mobile and web, I was intrigued by the prospect of using WordPress to build a professional web app. My curiosity heightened as the rise of WordPress surpassed its reputation as a blogging tool to a full CMS and now to an application platform. I decided to buy the book Building Web Apps with WordPress by Brian Messenlehner and Jason Coleman and learn the architecture behind such web apps. As of this writing, the book I review here is the 2004 edition. I look forward to ordering the updated edition being publish August 2019.
Chapter 1 – Building Web Apps with WordPress
In the first chapter, the authors describe application characteristics when WordPress would be a good platform for the web app and when it would not. Not surprisingly, WordPress’ strengths are its open-source codebase and the vast programming support that means, myriad of plugins, cost of building and deployment and flexibility. The weaknesses as a platform stem from comparison to optimized coding from scratch and developers that are highly skilled in another platform or language and can get there faster.
SchoolPress is introduced as a companion app and example of implemented concepts in the book. It is an app designed to facilitate interactions between teachers and students including classes, reports, schedules etc. School press runs as a multisite WordPress install with membership levels, user roles, custom post types (CPTs) and taxonomies. In fact, these CPTs and taxonomies are the “bridges,” as I’d like to call them, that extend WordPress into an app platform. These PHP classes that wrap the WP_User and WP_Post classes are the mapping so familiar in fundamental object oriented, SQL based web app architectures.