# Use a plugin to make custom post types? Or just write your own?

Today I made a very simple custom plugin for this website: the bookshelf. I researched the plugin store but didn’t find one that had the features/fields I need. I toyed with some of the more generic “make your own posttypes and taxonomy” plugins – but as a developer these are just to cumbersome. While they provide a nice UI – I have to know so much already that learning the ins/outs/quirks for all these plugins is just not worth it.

With Metabox all I need to know is Json which I already know. Off course you’ll need to know about WordPress plugin development as well, but that’s a scalable, somewhat future prove skill. WordPress made ages ago and custom post-types is still hacking it. While these plugins make it easy to do so, you should ask yourself “Should I do this?”.

Yes, they are easy and each and everyone of them tells you “You won’t need a developer” and how easy it is. What they don’t tell you is that the interface is clumsy, the syntax technical and you will spend a lot of time getting things right (if ever).

If there is one thing I have learned in my 10+ years of web-development is that nothing is easy and everything changes. Everybody who states otherwise doesn’t really know what she/he is talking about.