dartiss on "How far back a version for WP should I go for Plugin Development?"

Are or is there any definitive difference from 4.0 to 4.5?

If there is a changelog somewhere I could read that would be fine.

Have you checked the release log https://wordpress.org/news/category/releases/

Hi meshsmith,

It's not always a case of how you should go back but how far you can. So, for instance, if you use a shortcode, look up the add_shortcode function in the codex (https://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/add_shortcode) and you'll find under "Change Log" that this was added in WP 2.5. That gives a minimum WP version of 2.5 unless, of course, you use anything else in your plugin that makes it later. As a lot of my plugins use quite generic and basic code, often using a shortcode is the limiting factor and, hence, 2.5 is my minimum value.

David.