The history of the Dictionary plugin.
My name is Anne Dorko and I created the original Dictionary plugin for WordPress. This is the story of this plugin, which has largely been a side project yet has stood the test of time because of my firm belief in writing forward-thinking code.
October 8, 2009: Inception
The Dictionary plugin started out as a short tutorial written in October 2009 on my personal website explaining how to hack WordPress into a dictionary website using several normal plugins.
The idea was inspired by my brother’s new pug puppy. I loved that dog, and got it in my head to create a silly pug-themed dictionary site called “Pugtionary.” I believe in teaching everything I know, which is why I then wrote about how I did it.
Over the next two years, people wrote many comments with follow up questions. Ultimately, everyone wanted to know when I would turn the tutorial into a plugin they could just buy – instead of hacking their own versions together.
At that time, no such plugin existed (to my knowledge), so there was quite a clamor for something that fit the bill.
October 29, 2011: Creation
Finally, I decided that if so many people wanted such a plugin, it was silly of me not to create it. I first released a public version two years after the initial blog post went out.