Tom Ewer

Tom Ewer is the founder of Leaving Work Behind and WordCandy. He has been obsessed with WordPress since he first laid eyes on it, and has been writing educational and informative content for WordPress users since 2011. When he's not running his businesses, you're likely to find him outdoors somewhere – as far away from a screen as possible!

Why It’s Time for Agencies to Fully Embrace WordPress for Client Work

Author

Tom Ewer

Filed Under

Community, Featured

Published

June 8, 2016

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Despite the high profile success of companies such as 10up, some agencies are still reluctant to fully commit to WordPress as a solution for clients. The platform’s roots as a blogging engine (and small business CMS) still leave many doubting whether it’s the right technology to build an entire project or team around. While historical doubts about WordPress in an agency environment were not without justification, the software is more than ready to rise to the challenge these days — and an increasingly impressive number of top-flight agencies have moved large parts of their development efforts over to it. In this piece, we’ll […]

6 Reasons Why WordPress Makes Perfect Sense For Enterprise Companies

Author

Tom Ewer

Filed Under

Community, Featured

Published

June 1, 2016

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Though WordPress has come an incredibly long way from its blogging roots, there’s still a certain degree of skepticism in some quarters about whether it’s a platform that’s ready for enterprise adoption. The concerns are not totally without reason — at least in principle. Whether in terms of security, scalability, reliability, or just general ease of use, enterprise environments bring unique challenges to the table, and any underlying weaknesses in software solutions will quickly be exposed. In this piece, we’ll step through some of the most common objections that have dogged WordPress’ route to this potentially crucial market so far, and […]

An Introduction To PHP 7 For WordPress Users

Author

Tom Ewer

Filed Under

Featured

Published

May 23, 2016

12 Comments

WordPress has played a hugely significant role in helping PHP conquer the web over the last 12 years. While WordPress has whizzed through successive versions at an ever-increasing rate during that time, the language that still powers the majority of the platform has remained incredibly stable behind the scenes. Big changes are finally in the offing with the arrival of PHP 7, however, and major WordPress hosts such as WP Engine are already kicking the tires of the latest release and getting ready to fully support it for their users. In this piece, we’ll take a look at the development of […]

The WordPress Plugin Directory: What Does The Future Hold?

Author

Tom Ewer

Filed Under

Featured

Published

May 17, 2016

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Though the REST API has been hogging the headlines over the last 12 months, there’s also been significant recent work on two areas traditionally at the heart of WordPress: the Theme Directory and the Plugin Directory. With version three of the Plugin Directory marching towards a provisional late June release, now is an excellent time to look at what’s coming down the pipeline in that regard. It’s a potentially major step forward for plugin authors and users, and set to be one of the most significant changes to the platform this year. In this piece, we’ll tee up the much-anticipated imminent […]

The WordPress REST API: The Journey So Far, And What’s to Come

Author

Tom Ewer

Filed Under

Beginners, Development, Featured

Published

April 22, 2016

1 Comment

The WordPress REST API’s journey into core has been a long one and we’re not quite there yet. In many respects, however, the leisurely pace of its introduction has been a blessing. It’s given the community at large plenty of time to absorb the implications of what is a genuinely transformative shift in the platform’s nature. As we teeter on the edge of a REST API-powered future, now is an excellent time to take stock of its development to date, recap why it’s at the heart of the next stage of WordPress’s evolution, and take a punt on what we can […]

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