Category: Articles (Page 242 of 258)

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

Apps or Programs?

February 4, 2013 / Tom / 0 Comments

As with practically anyone who considers themselves a digital native, I dig using Twitter. One of the things I love the most is seeing various people’s opinions on many things (not everything, but I digress), especially when it’s related to an interest of my own.

Last week, Baratunde tweeted the following:

https://twitter.com/baratunde/status/296319290263629825

Though I respect the opinion, and definitely get where he’s coming from – probably more than I’m going to convey in this post – I disagree with the sentiment.

Open Source Profit Sharing: How Do You Do It?

January 31, 2013 / Tom / 0 Comments

Lately, one of the questions that I find myself wrestling with is what’s considered respectful and acceptable for charging for support or accepting donations for open source plugins?

Or, more simply, what’s an ideal model for open source profit sharing when you’ve received contributions to open source plugins?

Why (And How!) To Use A WordPress Boilerplate

January 30, 2013 / Tom

For those of who you have been reading this blog for a while (thanks, by the way), you know that I work to maintain the WordPress Plugin Boilerplate and the WordPress Widget Boilerplate along with a growing community of developers.

Despite the fact that I’ve promoted them here on the blog, called for others to get involved, and so on, I’ve never actually given a proper tutorial on how to use them to get started in your projects.

So in my lastest series on Envato, I’m making a case for why the matter and how to use them.

Software Craftsmanship: Why This Matters For WordPress

January 30, 2013 / Tom / 0 Comments

Earlier this week, I had a fun discussion with Dave Donaldson of Max Foundry about software craftsmanship.

I think it’s worth reading the quick Twitter discussion, but I want to be clear that I mention Dave because the respect him as a developer, and he was being a bit facetious in his comments.

Bottom line, Twitter’s not the point of this post – it’s simply setting the stage.

I’ve written before about WordPress Craftsmanship which generally covers my thoughts on the entire process, but I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned my thoughts on software craftsmanship as a whole and why I think it matters in WordPress.

As such, I thought this may be a good opportunity to do so.

Delivering Products as Self-Employed Software Developer

January 29, 2013 / Tom / 0 Comments

Delivering software is … fun!

When it comes to build a products under contract, one of the most challenging things that developers have to manage – specifically if they’re also serving as project management – is client expectations.

To be clear: outside of 8BIT, I’m also self-employed and spend a portion of my time building WordPress-based products for others. Generally, I build custom plugins and web applications.

Anyway, like anyone that makes the jump to self-employment, it wasn’t with out its share of learning curves.

It’s one thing to talk to people who are somewhat familiar with the web, with software, or with how similar projects work, but it’s a completely different situation to work with people who know what they want but aren’t exactly sure what all it entails.

For what it’s worth, here are three things that I’ve found useful in setting expectations, planning projects, and delivering products as a self-employed software developer.