- EZ-PZ—A plugin can be as simple as appending all Amazon Affiliate links with “(paid link)” or changing the WP admin icon for Posts to a Palm Tree.
- Fancy Functions—A plugin can also be as complicated as adding an entirely new set of functionalities (e.g., BuddyPress for a whole social experience, WooCommerce to sell your bracelets, LearnDash to teach virtually), or extending that functionality even further (e.g., Profile Fields for BuddyPress, PayPal for WooCommerce, Admin Toolkit for LearnDash).
- Zombie Plugins—The third kind of plugin is one that is no longer maintained or tested with the current version of WordPress.
Dr. Devlove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Plugin
Plugins, those powerful little pieces of code that extend the capability of a website (typically a WordPress CMS), have a bit of a reputation problem. One of the rumors going around is that a website can have “too many plugins”. And, as rumors go—there’s a little truth and a little fiction to that statement.
But, before I begin dismantling that rumor, let me walk you through a little history… Way back when I was a budding WordPress (WP) developer (it was that long ago, in developer years), plugins seemed scary like a “growth challenge”. Happily, I did stop worrying and learn to love the plugin. One of the things that helped was realizing that plugins fall into roughly three categories: