Josh Pollock, CalderaWP founder and Torque contributor, took ManageWP’s AMA stage this week. He answered questions about sci-fi novels, what he would be doing if WordPress didn’t exist, and his biggest coding mistake.
Here are five takeaways.
He Enjoys Working On Many Different Projects.
Pollock has his hands in many projects and he admitted that he is sometimes frustrated he can’t get more done. He still seems to get plenty accomplished and attributes this to sleeping and eating well. And, of course, his undeniable ability to “bend space and time to his will.”
Eventually, Pollock would like to move to a point where he’s only working on his own projects. Though he said he loves working with clients, it takes a lot of time.
“Right now, I’m focused on growing my businesses to the point where I’m just doing two things,” Pollock said. “If I could just work on my own things than I would really be able to create output.”
Pollock Has A Backup Plan In Case WordPress Vanishes.
None of us want WordPress to just vanish someday, but it never hurts to have a backup plan. Pollock would still work online but turn to something like Drupal, to keep with PHP. Another option would be Firebase. Hopefully, a world without WordPress will never come to be, but if it does Pollock will be set.
Hopefully, a world without WordPress will never come to be, but if it does Pollock will be set.
Themes Are Dead.
When asked about his preference between plugins and themes, Pollock made a very bold statement.
“It’s awesome how easy it is to get a simple WordPress site up and running,” Pollock said. “But if I were making websites for a living, which I’m not, I would be using a static HTML site and pulling in the dynamic content from a separate CMS, probably WordPress, via an API.”
Then he did admit that his sites are running themes, but that is because he has the budget to maintain them properly. Pollock admitted that he is partial to Angular and Symfony micro-frameworks, but it all depends on the project you’re doing.
Pollock Is A Science Fiction Fan.
After finishing the MaddAdam triology by Margarent Atwood, Pollock has started on the Expanse series, stating “I’m with book for awhile.”
Though Pollock loves to read science fiction, he can’t speak Klingon.
“I’m really bad at learning spoken languages,” Pollock said. “Spanish is beyond my skill level, so I’m not messing with something as advanced as Klingon.”
You Can Work In WordPress With A Degree In Environmental Science.
Pollock has a degree in environmental science, and so far it hasn’t seemed to stop him from having a career in WordPress. The only job he ever held was an internship. Pollock caught the WordPress bug when he began blogging in grad school and started hacking his theme. It was all downhill from there.
Check back every other Wednesday for another AMA with a WordPress influencer!
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