Over the last week and a half, I have been working with an old co-worker of mine on a project that he started about a month (or so) ago: searchwebjobs.com. This site is a pretty cool job listings site that is really easy to browse for jobs.

In brainstorming how to make the site better, I suggested that we create a WordPress plugin that would allow others (presumably, CSS galleries…) to grab a feed of our jobs and display them on their site.

So, grabbing my PHP 5 manual (and dusting it off…), I set to work. Fortunately, I have had some recent exposure to WordPress, so I felt reasonably sure that something could be done.

In all honesty, I couldn't be more impressed with WordPress' support for plugins. Consider this: it took me–a complete idiot at PHP–only 3 hours to program then entire plugin from nearly scratch. Not bad.

The beauty of WordPress' plugin support–IMO–is the default database that is so easily exposed. Instead of having to create stupid PHP connections, that stuff already exists, so all you have to do is basically write SQL. Plus, there are a few native functions to WordPress that allow you to use a row (or two) in the default tables for things like configuration data–very handy for simple plugin setup information.

So yeah, this was a great experience and I am impressed with how easy WordPress makes it.

Anyway, if you are looking to display some great web and tech related job listings on your site, check out the plugin. As this plugin is barely above Alpha, I would be very grateful for some suggestions on how to improve it, ideas for new features, etc. And if there are any PHP'ers out there willing to provide some constructive criticism on my code, I'd very much appreciate that!