1. Practical REST API
Why admin-ajax.php should be avoided and how
Aki Björklund
CTO,H1
@akibjorklund

2. Communication between JavaScript and PHP
is done with Ajax

3. Historically that is done in WordPress by
calling
/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php

4. Why admin-ajax.php is bad?

5. 1.
Inefficient

6. 2.
Not cached

7. 3.
No infrastructure like authentication, data
validation, …

8. 4.
Ad hoc: messy

9. WordPress REST API in core from 4.4

10. There are no built-in endpoints yet

11. Unless you install the REST API plugin

12. In many cases no need to write any PHP to
do a lot.

13. But what can you do just with
what the core already has?

14. Example: Comment Reactions

16. Converting admin-ajax.php to
REST API

17. Before

22. After

27. Best practice is to implement what you
just saw as a REST Controller. Currently
available only with the REST API plugin.

28. Summary

29. Use the REST API instead of
admin-ajax.php

30. It’s faster and cleaner

31. It’s also both easy to implement
and migrate to

32. .
Aki Björklund
CTO,H1
@akibjorklund