Deliberate practice: you have it right with the notion of “Learn A, B and C” in that order and practice until you don’t have to think about it.

There’s much more coming on this. Watch Deacon too, we’re ping-ponging the discussion between our blogs.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..WordPress Plugin Activation using PHP classes =-.

Is “activation1.php” the name of your main plugin code file? Because in the deconstruction you say that activation hook [sic?] operates on the plugin name but “activation1.php” is not the plugin name – the code and your comments both say the plug name is “A Test”.

At first I thought you had accidentally switched from using “activation1.php” and “my_other_file.php” to name the second file, but that makes even less sense.

And if the plugin name is “A Test” then won’t WordPress go looking for a_test.php as the main code file? I was under the (mis?)impression that the main code file needed to match the plugin name for some code-related reason aside from “it’s easier for the programmer to remember”.

Clarification, please Sir!

About deliberate practice – I guess my practice is simply in constructing and refining my websites (and reading these articles), which is deliberately done as PHP practice as well as as website construction. On the other hand it’s not deliberate in terms of “I shall learn a, then b, then c” being deliberately decided in advance. I have been learning PHP piecemeal as I need to figure out how to make WordPress do more and more, rather than in a more coherent fashion. Does this count as deliberate practice in your book? I’m getting better at it, so it works for me.

PS
Ranking keywords – in my google searches (which default to google.com.au, just to complicate matters) you’re ranking on ‘register_activation_hook’ (7th) and ‘register_deactivation_hook’ (28th), so I’m guessing that’s the second one you optimised for. Others I suspected were:
George Leonard’s Mastery
practice of mastery
deliberate practice
None of them ranked in the top 100 in my Google search. I evidently underestimated the popularity of these topics because it’s not a book or a phrase I’ve come across before. I may also admit to checking “man pages” but mostly to see what it returned – I am utterly unsurprised that you don’t rank in the top 100 for that one!!
.-= Ricky Buchanan´s last blog ..Accessibility and the iPad: First Impressions =-.

You forced me to look at source code again. (Know this: I am plotting my revenge.)

Find out what those things are you need to master, then practice those things. Over and over again.

Constructing repeatable code is something I need to do on a regular basis. That’s my practice.

Your practice will be different.

Also, I’m not an expert in any sense of the word. We’re going through a big social backlash against “experts,” and truly, I am not an expert on WordPress. I am however, competent to employ this function in a plugin!

Experts do get it wrong a lot. They’re just supposed to be aware of it when they do get it wrong.

Just so you know, this article and the previous article represent at least 40 hours of my time, taken over several months. Acquiring in-depth knowledge is time consuming.

.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Caressing Alien Species, and, a (late) Valentine… Take cover! It’s two Weeks in Review =-.

I used register_activation_hook for the search term. It’s not a “hot” term by any means, but the people searching for it likely to be desperate. =)
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..World Class Copywriting: Are there Bird droppings on your catapult? =-.

You’re way past my understanding. I only just got to the point where I can use the thesis hooks to do what I want to. But I do equally get where you’re coming from.

As for your deliberate practice thing, it sounds like what I do when I call this life a game. If it’s just about getting from A to B, where’s the fun in that? It’s all about the journey. So different vocabulary but I’m with you.
.-= Eleanor Edwards´s last blog ..Legislation for a weapon? You can help! =-.