Category: Articles (Page 208 of 258)

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

Developers Must Know Everything, Or I’m Out of a Job

January 22, 2014 / Tom / 0 Comments

I was talking with a fellow developer recently about some of the more recent “tools of the trade,” so to speak.

That is, we were discussing some of the newer frameworks that have been made available, web server software, configuration management tools, and dependency management applications.

I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but the truth is that for the past couple of years, my technology stack hasn’t changed all of that much: Everything from the database all the way up through the IDE that I use has remained the same.

This isn’t to say that learning new technologies isn’t important, but I think that there’s something in our culture – at least in the United States – that invites us to spend our time spreading ourselves very thin across a variety of technologies rather than becoming specialized in a smaller subset of tools.

Writing Open Source Code (Or “Here Be Dragons”)

January 20, 2014 / Tom / 0 Comments

Here Be Dragons

I don’t know if this is something that every developer experiences – regardless of what level of the stack you work on – but I know that for those who truly care about getting better at what we do, there’s often this constant feeling of “I think this could be better.”

Or, perhaps another way of saying it, is that one of the challenges in writing open source code is the criticism that can come that infuse a level of self-doubt.

For example, how many times have those of you who have contributed to a larger project, built something of your own from the ground up, or simply tried to write a small add-on to an existing solution, ended up with something that works, but have this sinking feeling that this just isn’t as elegant – or, I dunno, optimal – as it should be.

I mean, surely it’s not just me, right?

Developers Need Help Marketing WordPress Themes

January 15, 2014 / Tom / 0 Comments

If you hang around the WordPress Community long enough (that is, those people who are involved in working on WordPress or building something on WordPress in some way), you’ll notice that we all have a tendency to aim to build the best thing possible – whatever that may be.

At least, that’s what we claim to be doing.

And I’m just as guilty of this as the next person.

But let’s face it: developers need help marketing WordPress themes. Perhaps designers do, too. And let’s not forget plugins or other add-ons.

Basically, I think that we get so involved with the community of which we’re a part, we forget about the market and the terms in which they think. We’re busy trying to help one another other, perhaps even impress one another, and even working to try to out-do each other (I mean, come on, that is competition, right?), that we end up marketing our products in the same way every single time.

And you know what I’m talking about.

Officially Partnering with Envato and WordPress

January 13, 2014 / Tom / 0 Comments

For the past several years, I’ve contributed a number of articles and premium tutorials to Envato specifically around WordPress.

The content has ranged from topics such as Strategies For Supporting WordPress Plugins up through my current series on Using WordPress For Web Application Development.

To say that I enjoy contributing code and content to WordPress is an understatement.

To that end, I’m proud to announce that I – or, more specifically, Pressware – is officially partnering with Envato and WPTuts+ in 2014.

My Day-To-Day: Lift App, Part 1

January 10, 2014 / Tom / 0 Comments

When it comes to my phone, I’m one of those types of people who usually likes to keep a relatively clean home screen (and I even use folders in order to make sure I only have one home screen so I don’t have to swipe, but that’s fodder for an entirely other post).

Of course, this means that I keep myself relatively limited on the applications that I have installed and that I use. I’m not one for much having anything more than what I need when it comes to my phone.

Sure, I have just a small set of applications that are fun – who doesn’t? – but the majority of the applications on my phone serve a very distinct purpose for helping me get things done.

And one of the latest apps that I’ve been trying out recently is Lift App.

Granted, I’m one of those who’s willing to give each application a fair shake for about a month, so this may-or-may-not still be installed later this year, but so far, I’m really digging it.