Addon programming tips, tricks, and tutorials
 

I've seen several people asking if there is some kind of "list of addon programming tips" site recently. There isn't, but I know there are a lot of great forum posts floating around, so I thought it might be a good idea to start a centralized list. I'm starting out with some of mine, but feel free to post links to your own posts, or to other posts you found helpful. WowAce posts are also fine, and I'll be updating the list based on suggestions posted in this thread.

Getting started

• List of things addons/macros can't do

Common questions and misconceptions

• What does "local" mean?
• Memory usage with embedded libraries

General tips and tricks

• General addon optimization tips
• Q&A on different ways to access globals, upvaluing, etc.
• How upvalues (local copies of global functions) work
• Speed tests for globals vs. locals (including upvalues)
• Old "coding tips" page on WowAce -- mostly still relevant, but everything about Ace2 is obsolete, and a lot of the discussions are also obsolete.

Specific tutorials

• How to handle saved variables and default settings without libraries
• How to use dropdown menus
• How to localize (translate) your addon
• How to make WoW-compatible images
• Use animations instead of UIFrameFlash to avoid taint

See also:
Useful Information / Tools / Links for Developers