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If you are unfortunate enough to work on a WordPress plugin, one of the nice features of this release is the ability to symlink plugins.

http://make.wordpress.org/core/2014/04/14/symlinked-plugins-...

This will make iterating on changes to a plugin much easier.

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yes - this is a great update. I used to try and keep a separate folder for projects and my wordpress install and as I recall I had to come up with a Makefile to copy files into the WP plugins directory for testing... symlink is definitely a big win.

sorry but can someone ELI5? what does symlinking plugins mean actually?

thanks

From the link:

One of the great advantages to this is that plugin developers can keep their plugin separate from their WordPress installation. This is a boon for developers with multiple installs who want to test compatibility; keep in mind that you can symlink the entire plugins directory if you're testing multiple!

Basically, if you're a plugin dev, you no longer have to update your files across multiple local installs; you can simply keep your plugin files in one place, and symlink that plugin to any local install you're testing on.

Another alternative to this is to develop in a local multisite install. Not suitable for every scenario, but good enough for 90% of sites in my experience.

Can somebody explain like I'm 5 what ELI5 means?

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