Software Engineering in WordPress, PHP, and Backend Development
Personal opinions and how-to’s that I’ve written both here and as contributions to other blogs.
When it comes to turning a profit on open-source software, I’d like to think that the majority of developers follow the same set of ethics. I’m my experience, it’s true – though, as with anything, there are outliers.
As I continue to work to introduce a premium level of support for my WordPress-related work, one of the things that I’ve found myself wrestling with is turning a profit on work to which others have contributed.
But are open source ethics that complicated?
The past couple of weeks, I’ve been discussing the challenge of supporting free WordPress plugins. Though I’ve done this in the past, I’ve retired those projects, but am looking to get back into doing so all the while documenting the process here.
But first, for those who haven’t been reading the articles up to this point, I wanted to reference the previous posts just to let you know where I stand with regard to all of this:
The point is that I’m slowly working my way back into building a small business around building WordPress plugins, supporting them, offering documentation, manuals, and so on, but I want to make sure that I’m doing it right.
To that end, I’m enjoying the discussion with you guys via the comments as well as the challenge of finding the best tools possible not only for me but for potential customers, as well and this is what raises my next issue: Finding the right WordPress support system. Continue reading
Last week, the Everyone Should Learn To Code video was making the rounds around the web. If you’ve haven’t seen it, I’ve shared it below.
In short, the video opens with a quote by Steve Jobs:
I think everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer because it teaches you how to think.
In short, it’s an inspiring video that features some of the most popular technologists discussing their thoughts on programming, their foray into the industry, why others should follow suit.
This idea isn’t new, but the popular nature of this video has really gotten me thinking about my particular stance on this issue. In fact, I read a strong rebuttle to the video last week that – whether or not you agree with it – is a well-written piece.
I shared my candid thoughts with my team on our back channel which resulted in a bit of a discussion primarily between John and myself. The more I’ve thought about it, the more of an opinion I’ve developed, and thought I’d share it here.
TL;DR: I’m not completely sold on the fact that everyone should learn to code. First, I think we need to define what it actually means to code.
At my recent WordPress Developer Meetup, the topic of shortcodes came up as a point of discusion. When talking about it, I realized that I’ve never actually talked about them here on the blog, so I thought it might be worth bringing up for discussion.
For those of you who have seen any of my plugins, you see that none of them include shortcodes despite the fact that people have requested functionality offered by them.
For the most part, I dislike WordPress shortcodes. I think they are unintuitive, difficult to use for the average user, and go against much of what the core functionality of WordPress aims to offer.
But the challenge is that there’s not yet a suitable alternative.
Last week, I wrote about my first Day-To-Day post on Getting Things Done. In the comments, Kevin asked the following question:
Tom, do you schedule time to use Twitter and general interneting or are you able to work with intermittent distractions?
The truth is, I was actually going to include this in the original post, but it was getting a bit long so I thought it made more sense to break it out into a separate post.
TL;DR: I don’t use a Twitter client on my phone, I check in a few times a day, I generally don’t use Facebook, and I use Path for my closest friends and family.
Of course, there’s a bit more to it than that.
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