Comments on: Goodbye Dolly? (Take the poll!)

By: Brandon

Brandon — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 04:54:37 +0000

I voted to leave it. I think it is there for the new user who’s curious as to what a plug-in is, or is all together not aware of it. It’s also such a simple plug-in that it won’t break anything if the user decides to change the settings on it.
I actually think it’s a great example of what an initial interaction should be- non-threatening and inviting to dig for those who wish to.

By: George

George — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:43:06 +0000

I say leave it. It’s not just a sacred cow. I first learned how the plugin system works by viewing the source of Hello Dolly. It’s simple enough that you can crack it open and clearly see the basic building blocks for building plugins.

Not only that, but for new users, it’s a win/win situation. Don’t like Hello Dolly? Well, learning how to remove it shows you how to access and use the plug-in manager.

I’ve installed WordPress a few dozen times. Never had a problem with HD.

By: Freedog

Freedog — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 07:05:11 +0000

I voted to erase. I have not had many issues with the recurring plugin as mentioned above. I put a very basic shell script in a folder outside the webroot. Using cPanel (or whatever control panel your host provides) configure a CRON job to run the script every X days (I set mine to once per week) and you will never have to worry about it again.

By: Jeff Starr

Jeff Starr — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:46:40 +0000

All I can say is think twice before doing so, Jeffro. It seems like a valid and interesting question to some, but not everyone appreciates the idea. If you do bring it up, let us know how it goes. Cheers.

By: Jeffro

Jeffro — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:33:40 +0000

Just for giggles, I’m going to try and bring up this topic of removing Hello Dolly as a bundled plugin at one of the developer chats to see what they say.

By: irka

irka — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 08:39:10 +0000

It should stay :) I like this.. like someone else said – it gives a little warm :) and i never remove it from my plugins :)

By: Epic Alex

Epic Alex — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:23:39 +0000

I haven’t had time to read all the comments, so apologies if this has already been said, but there are so many tutorials that give a better idea of how to write a plugin than looking at “Hello Dolly”, that I don’t really think that argument stands.

A plugin that is bundled to show that should at least create an admin page and save some options.

By: that girl again

that girl again — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 23:39:42 +0000

If any of the core developers other than Matt had written that plugin, it would never have got within sniffing distance of core. People would have laughed at the very idea of including it.

I can see the value in bundling a simple example plugin so people can see how the system works. What I don’t see is why the simple example plugin can’t also do something vaguely useful.

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:33:06 +0000

Look, what everybody on here against the plugin is forgetting is that it’s not there for them. It’s for beginners, and for them, it serves a number of useful functions, including (a) directing them to the world of plugins to begin with, and (b) providing a really simple example of how a plugin is coded.

By: Rick

Rick — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:31:59 +0000

I manage a lot of WordPress websites and I have spent a lot of time getting rid of Dolly, too much. I have given up and just let it add clutter to my plugins.

Hmmm, is there such a thing as “plugin spam”?