In 2015, Matt Mullenweg suggested that the WordPress community invest some of their time to “learn JavaScript deeply”. Well I am late to the party, and maybe some of you are as well, but Gutenberg is here and JavaScript is amongst us.

This talk is intended to be a humble narrative about my journey to learning JavaScript, and some React. One that is still ongoing, and that has stopped and started a few times.

I was originally a WordPress user, turned webmaster, turned developer. This transition has shaped my perspective on development and hopefully allows me to provide some unique and WordPress-oriented insights into how one might move from a PHP-based, WordPress paradigm to make room for JavaScript and React in our workflows.

We will explore the current evolution of theme development. How JavaScript fits into a WordPress developer’s workflow and where a WordPress developer may end up leaning on an amalgamation of what they know and they may still need to learn. And from that, I hope to open up a conversation about knowing WordPress as a platform and PHP developer, while perhaps not being the best JavaScript developer in the room.

Presentation Slides »