Dan Beil gave a talk on how to think at scale when developing WordPress sites. He discussed that scaling is about more than just performance and code - it also involves risk, complexity from features and traffic, and planning for the unknown. He provided tips on how to think at scale regarding site architecture, plugins, code performance, and code portability. Specifically, he emphasized organizing content types, choosing plugins wisely based on cost/benefit, optimizing queries, and applying principles like single responsibility to make code reusable by any developer on any project.

1. Dan Beil | @add_action_dan
So You Think You Can
Scale

2. Dan Beil | @add_action_dan
Hi, Im Dan Beil
- Me
- (current) Dev Team Lead at Crowd Favorite
- (former) Software Developer at Alley Interactive
- (WordPress VIP Partner)
- Working with WordPress since ~ 2009
- B.S. in Applied Sociology
- Dogs

3. Dan Beil | @add_action_dan
Why this talk?
Scaling is about more than just site
performance and code

4. Dan Beil | @add_action_dan
What Does “Scale” Mean?
1. Risk - Cannot go down
2. Complexity - Constant feature additions,
interface
3. Traffic - Large (concurrent) user base
4. You Know it when you see it

5. Dan Beil | @add_action_dan
How to “Think at Scale”
Account the for unknown
so it doesn’t break

6. Dan Beil | @add_action_dan
How to “Think at Scale”
- Site Architecture
- Plugins
- Code Performance
- Code Portability

7. Dan Beil | @add_action_dan
How to “Think at Scale” - Site Arch.
Site Architecture
- Consider Content Types
- Determine relationships between
Content and what architecture will
best suit these relationships
- Meta Data vs CPTs vs Taxonomies
- Future query concerns
- Unknown future content (use the WP
Theme Unit Testing data)
https://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_
Unit_Test
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8. Dan Beil | @add_action_dan
How to “Think at Scale” - Plugins
● All 3rd Party Code introduces
Some type of risk
○ Maintenance
○ Updates
○ Support/Communication
○ Not feature complete for the
project (i.e. on 80%)
○ I.e. not just security
● Choose your 3rd Party Code Wisely
And 3rd party Code

9. Dan Beil | @add_action_dan
How to “Think at Scale” - Plugins
The Cost / Benefit Choice:
● Ask WHY you are using a
plugin and SHOULD you
learn to code THIS yourself.
My list of Plugins:
● https://vip.wordpress.com/plugins/
● Gravity Forms, SearchWP, Core
Plugins (WP API)
● Highly complex (eCommerce)
● Generally, things that are proven
And 3rd party Code

10. Dan Beil | @add_action_dan
How to “Think at Scale” - Performance
● Lots to read on this
● Meta and Term Queries
○ Tools to find ‘bad’ queries
■ Phpcs (VVV)
■ Query Monitor
(Plugin - John Blackbourn)
● https://10up.github.io/Engineering-Best-Practices/php/

11. Dan Beil | @add_action_dan
How to “Think at Scale” - Portability
Definition:
● Any Developer
● Any Project
● Any Time

12. Dan Beil | @add_action_dan
How to “Think at Scale” - Portability
● Code Organization
● Single Responsibility Principle
● Abstraction of code and re-usability
● Sending variables to template parts
https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/21676

13. Dan Beil | @add_action_dan
How to “Think at Scale” - Portability
Code Organization
● Directory Structure
● Coding Standards
○ PHPCS
● Local environments
○ Build tools (Grunt / Gulp)

14. Dan Beil | @add_action_dan
How to “Think at Scale” - Portability
Single Responsibility Principle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_responsibility_principle
● Get logic code off of
template parts
○ Use Helper Functions
○ Custom new WP_Queries
● If you’ve coded it twice,
you’ve coded too much

15. Dan Beil | @add_action_dan
How to “Think at Scale” - Portability
Borrowing from the logic of the
Single Responsibility Principle
and applying its idea to
templates will sometimes
require us to send variables to
template parts

16. Dan Beil | @add_action_dan
How to “Think at Scale” - Portability
Each (sub) template part should
do one thing and one this only

17. Dan Beil | @add_action_dan
<project>_get_template_part( ‘template-parts/author’,
array(
$post_id,
$class,
$link )
);
How to “Think at Scale” - Portability
Example Cuatom get_template_part function

18. Dan Beil | @add_action_dan
How to “Think at Scale”
- Site Architecture
- How are you organizing content
- Plugins
- What dependencies are you willing to accept
- Code Performance
- Total Users, Concurrent Users, Hosting / Caching considerations
- Code Portability
- The importance of _thinking_ about code logic before actually writing

19. Dan Beil | @add_action_dan
More Resources
WP_Query (10up) - https://10up.github.io/Engineering-Best-Practices/php
Elastic Search (Aaron Holbrook) - http://wordpress.tv/?s=aaron+holbrook
My Preferred Envrionment - https://github.com/Varying-Vagrant-Vagrants/
WordPress Core coding standards -
https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/best-practices/coding-standar
ds/php/
Make Ticket on passing vars to templates -
https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/best-practices/coding-standar
ds/php/

20. Dan Beil | @add_action_dan
Thanks, Questions?
Slides at: