Category: Articles (Page 154 of 258)

Personal opinions and how-to’s that I’ve written both here and as contributions to other blogs.

My Priorities (Balancing Work and Home)

June 26, 2015 / Tom

For an upcoming project, Andy Adams and I are working to build [what I consider to be] a really cool site for a client. Details of the project aside, he and I had a really interesting conversation earlier this week the details of which I thought were worth sharing. Specifically, we talk about developer pragmatism and balancing work with our home lives.

To some degree, I almost consider this to be a sort of letter-to-my-20-year-old-self, but I think it’s relevant to anyone who may be young and starting out in the field of development or who may be about to experience a major life change for whatever reason.

For those not wanting to read the entire post, the gist of it is this:

The ability to sit at your computer and consume as much information as possible regarding programming, software development, and so on is likely to change as you experience major changes in your life.

The thing is, this can sound like a major bummer if you’re someone on the cusp of a major life change. But it’s not and I thought I’d share why – at least as far as my experience allows me to do so.

A Strategy For Estimates in Software

June 25, 2015 / Tom / 0 Comments

This is one of those posts that’s driven by my own personal experience and nothing more. I know there are tons of books, articles, blogs, and probably even tweets that would disagree with what I’m going to share, but as someone who has worked for himself for the last half a decade or so, I figure it’s something worth talking about if it’s only tangentially related to WordPress (or running your own business).

Furthermore, I rarely discuss business-related topics here. There are others – like Chris and Curtis – who do a far better job than I ever could.

Nonetheless, as someone who’s done enough project proposals and free estimates – just like most freelancers, agencies, and so on – I’m coming to the conclusion that, at some point, estimates in software aren’t enough if they are free. There’s more to it than that.

And when you’re livelihood depends on your business and your business depends on cash flow and putting effort into trying to land a project that results in no cash flow negatively affects your livelihood. Thus, there has to be more that goes into drafting a proposal that just coming up with a document to send to your potential client.

So I suppose that’s the TL;DR version of the experience(s) on which I’m going to elaborate.

Getting Out of the WordPress Bubble

June 22, 2015 / Tom / 0 Comments

Every now again, someone who’s prolific, popular, and/or who has been involved with WordPress for a significant amount of time decides to share that they are “getting out of the WordPress bubble.”

The WordPress Bubble

Generally speaking, when someone says this, they mean they’re branching out into other technologies, languages, tools, and so on in order to diversify their skill set be it for personal and/or professional reasons.

And I really like that. It’s something that I like to do (though I have to admit that it was easier when life was a little simpler – that’s just me, though) and something that I’m still aiming to do (though I’m still delayed on getting involved with it as much as it pains me to admit it).

But when someone – be it you, me, or anyone else – claims they’re “getting out of the WordPress bubble” or “moving out of the WordPress bubble,” it causes me to look at myself and my own career to determine if I’m doing it right.

Ever had that feeling?

WordPress Menus and The Customizer

June 18, 2015 / Tom / 0 Comments

Generally speaking, I’ve no desire to get into the back and forth that’s happening right now (and that has been happening) regarding WordPress Menus and the Customizer, so I realize in writing this post that I need to tread carefully.

To be clear, I’ve no interest in stating my opinion one way or the other on the upcoming changes in WordPress 4.3, not because I’ve anything to hide or anything to share, but because I don’t think it’s productive. There are other aspects of all of this that I’d rather discuss.

Additionally, many of the people who read this blog are likely already familiar with it, though if you’re not there’s plenty of thoughtful reading on the Make blogs, on blogs from others like Chris Lema, and on blogs like WP Tavern.

Make WordPress

And for the record, don’t read into the specific links that I’ve shared – these are purely meant to bring some of you up to speed on the issue, they don’t necessarily reflect (or deflect, for that matter) my own personal opinions on the matter.

So this raises the question:

Why bother writing about this at all?

Just because I may not be taking a stance about the upcoming changes to the next version of WordPress doesn’t mean that there aren’t other things that can’t be discussed rather than “Yes, this should happen” or “No, this shouldn’t happen.”

Not everything has to be some polarizing issue that divides an audience. Sometimes, there are considerations and other points to be made that sit more on neutral ground than anything else, that gets lost in the heated debate on a hot topic, and that’s what I’d like to discuss.

My Opinion on WordPress Change Logs

June 16, 2015 / Tom / 0 Comments

As far as WordPress-related news is concerned, I think that both Post Status and WP Tavern are two of the best places to get consistent reporting on a variety of topics that range anywhere from things for standard end-users through things with designers and developers.

I’m not really a fan of doing any type of commentary of coverage-of-coverage (so meta, right?), but WP Tavern recently ran an article that I’ve been thinking about since I read it.

Specifically, the article was titled: WordPress Plugin Developers Need to Communicate Better in Change Logs.

WordPress Plugin Developers Need to Communicate Better in Change Logs

Though there aren’t many, I think reading each of the comments is something worth doing if you haven’t already done so.

Anyway, as far as the general topic of the article is concerned, I couldn’t agree more – both as an end-user and as a developer, and I wanted to share my own thoughts on the topic if for no other reason than to share my own perspective on the topic.