If you’re a developer that blogs (and you should) or one that develops websites powered by WordPress, chances are you already know about my top three favorite plug-ins. Yes, these are the ones I can’t imagine life without:

ExecPHP

One of my default plug-in installs, ExecPHP allows you to, yes, “execute” PHP from within WordPress. That means that chunks of PHP code will work in your pages, posts and widgets- not just in your templates. I previously used runPHP, but switched after running into some problems with the latter- and I’m glad I did. This one just works for me.

Preserve Code Formatting

Developers know how important it is that the formatting of our code isn’t trifled with. This lovely plug-in makes it so WordPress (or other plug-ins you’ve got installed) can’t modify your code, while retaining your original whitespace and characters. Simply use <pre> and <code> and the plug-in will take care of the rest.

SQL Executioner

A gem of a plug-in that allows you to access your MySQL database from within WordPress- that’s right, without having to fire up phpMyAdmin. Among other things, it performs “select”s and “describe”s, and modifies with “insert”s and “update”s.

What are your favorite WordPress plug-ins?