Author: Tom (Page 135 of 428)

Promoting WordPress Products Easily

December 2, 2016 / Tom

When it comes to promoting WordPress products, or products in general, is not my strong suit. You can ask any number of friends I’ve talked to about branding, marketing, and other things that go into it.

That’s okay, though.

I mean, that’s why we have these kinds of people in our lives right? We treat them as mentors, leverage their experience. And we opt to do the same for others when we’re approached, too.

Although I don’t know much about the above I do know about writing and sharing your content via Twitter to help it reach your followers (and hopefully their followers and their followers followers).

Talking WordPress as a Web Application Foundation

December 1, 2016 / Tom

I’ve been interested in using WordPress as a web application foundation for some time now (to the point where I’m almost annoying myself when talking about it).

But with features like the REST API being made available – via plugin or inclusion in core – and with WordPress continuing to grow market share, I think that it’s viability as such continues to make sense.

Maybe it makes more sense now than it did years ago.

Regardless, I had the opportunity to talk with Cloudways earlier this year in a relatively in-depth interview and the topic of WordPress as a web application foundation was part of the interview.

Web Application Foundation

Since it’s something I’ve been talking about, I thought why not include some of that content here?

Using Namespacing and Autoloading in WordPress

November 30, 2016 / Tom

It’s not hard to find criticism about namespacing and autoloading in WordPress, and lack thereof. As much as I’d like to see it, I think it’s important to take a practical look at the software as a whole, the requirements, and realize that implementing such organization would require a lot.

Specifically, it would require applying object-oriented programming throughout the entire codebase (which would last longer than a release cycle in and of itself).

It would also require that all hosts who support WordPress on any level (yes, even those supporting legacy versions) can handle the new features.

In short, it’s not an easy task and it’s important to recognize the practical challenges that come with doing so in 13 year old software powering approximately 25% of the web.

It’s not that it can’t be done, that it won’t be done, that people don’t want it done. But it’s requires exceptional planning, execution, testing, and support from a wide array of situations that I don’t know if I can even fully grasp.

With all of that said, though, this doesn’t mean that we can’t use namespaces and autoloading in our WordPress projects.

Get Things Done: An Interview with iThemes

November 29, 2016 / Tom

Now and then, I’m asked how I get things done or what are the preferred methods I use.

It’s not as if I’m some authority on the subject – I’m not (and even those who tend to miss a few things, in my opinion). Admittedly, I like to talk about this kind of stuff, but that’s just it:

It’s about being able to manage responsibilities effectively.

Frankly, I think that a lot of the prescriptive strategies aren’t tailored for specific personalities. But that’s for another post.

But this whole “responsibility management” and ideas for how to get things done is not something that’ relegated to one person. There are people who I’ve met in and out of this industry who I try to talk with on a regular basis about the same type of things.

I want to be able to learn from them so I can shortcut making the same mistakes in my life and career.

WordCamp US 2016, Post Status Publish, and Instagram

November 28, 2016 / Tom / 0 Comments

This post is going to be weird:

It’s a deviation from my normal content, it’s going to cover WordCamp US 2016, an event prior to that, and social media.

I said it was weird. But hang with me.

I’m not an avid user of Instagram in that I don’t really, you know, post pictures or anything like that. At least not right now.

I have, however, been using the story feature a little bit (much like Snapchat but without the absolutely terrible UI and pathetic stories shared by “news” outlets).

It’s also fun to follow along with those who do share photos and stories. I just don’t have that much to share given that I work out of my house, live in my house, and generally hang around my house during the week.