Some folks love programming for Pi, others rave about Apple, but I’m really into pear programming lately.
Torque Toons: Pear Programming
Nothing Is Foolproof… Even WordPress
Being a WordPress plugin developer is kind of insane when you think about it. You write code that can be freely modified by anyone and is expected to work with any infinite different collections that make up a unique WordPress site. This is a huge part of why I love what I do, but still, I have to admit, it’s kind of crazy. Developing a plugin or theme that has to be compatible with a range of different WordPress versions, PHP versions, MySQL versions, web servers, and more is a huge undertaking. That doesn’t even include the infinite number of […]
10 Skills All WordPress Developers Should Have
23% of the internet? That can’t be right. That’s gotta be millions of websites. How come I have never heard of it then? She must be lying. Nothing can be that important and slip me by completely. This WordPress thingy must be more like a hobby. That can’t be a real job. For those who have no idea what WordPress is, being a WordPress developer must sound like a made-up job. Web designer, yes. They can sort of understand that. After all, websites have to come from somewhere, right? But WordPress developer, on the other hand, most people have never […]
A Developer’s Guide to Learning SASS in Twenty Minutes or Less
Like it or not, if you’re a WordPress developer CSS is part of your life. One of the reasons that CSS bothers me so much is that writing it involves a constant violation of the golden rule of programming: “don’t repeat yourself.” While I’m still not a designer, learning to use the CSS pre-processor SASS has allowed me to write CSS in a sane manner. Not only is SASS more efficient, but I think it leads to an overall better design. The best part about SASS is that its an actual programming language, which means if you know the basics […]
Diving into Dictator: A Provisioning Tool for WordPress
Some of you may have seen the announcement of a new WP-CLI package known as Dictator. Dictator allows you to define the “state” of your WordPress install. It keeps a running record of your WordPress configuration options, broken up into three categories. “Settings” stores basic site information like title, description, and active theme and plugins. “Users” stores the name, email, and display_name of each user. “Terms” holds categories, tags, and other post metadata. All of this information is stored neatly in a small YAML config file. That way, you can hand off a config file to various members of a […]
Don’t Quit Your Day Job yet . . .
Every week I talk with a WordPress developer who is thinking about quitting their day job and going full time—either as a freelancer or into creating a new product. Every week I walk them through the reasons I suggest they don’t quit their day jobs just yet. If you’re in a similar place, this may be of help to you too. So here are 5 reasons to keep your day job. #1 Scarcity brings focus I’m going to talk a lot about scarcity. So let’s begin with a simple understanding of what it means. Scarcity is all about a restricted […]
Finely Tuned Consultant: Carrie Dils
Howdy, I make websites for people using WordPress and the Genesis Framework. When I’m not working, you can find me sniffing books, swimming in the neighbor’s pool, or watching crime dramas. My husband, Dave, and I are parents to two rescue labrador retrievers, one black and one yellow. We embrace diversity. Meet Carrie Dils, one of the top-notch developers coming right out of the Lone Star State. She specializes in Genesis sites, and has been building things with WordPress for several years, and working with computers since as long as she can remember. Her dad was a computer scientist who […]
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