August 8, 2019 — The team at WordCamp Asheville is thrilled to announce our 2019 keynote speaker – Chris Lema. Chris not only brings expertise, talent, and skill to his work and the stage, he also brings strategic vision, authenticity, and straight talk. Get ready to learn and be inspired.

Read more about our 2019 WordCamp Asheville keynote.

August 8, 2019 — Project management at its best removes obstacles to doing great work by helping clients and teams collaborate effectively and providing great data for business decisions. At its worst, it’s a complex administrative system for reporting statuses on failed or failing projects.
It’s tempting to try to fix bad project management situations with software, since that’s what we make for other people-websites, plugins, blocks, or themes that solve various business problems. Before you spend that hard-earned cash on expensive software, though, let’s talk about some less spendy ways to provide value and focus on what we’re really here to do.
Takeaways:

Understand what you, your boss, and/or your team need from you before investing in software or other tools.
Tools for task management, process automation, invoicing and budget tracking, and project management.
How to learn from bad practices and bad data.

Presentation Slides »

August 8, 2019 — Caching can be tricky business. Fundamentally, the concept is simple: storing a temporary copy of data so future requests can be served faster. In reality, there are a number of different types of caching. Certain types of caching can effect our code in different ways. Data changes and the cache has to be invalidated. What happens if a caching layer runs out of memory or goes down?
This session will enlighten those new to caching as well as introduce some common misconceptions, pitfalls and strategies to caching in WordPress themes and plugins.
Takeaways:

What caching is
What types of caching exist
What developers should know about caching when developing on WordPress

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August 8, 2019 — How adding custom css and js to the WordPress admin can help mold the WordPress front end to better suit the individual client needs with the addition of controls and styles to both the Gutenberg editor and Advanced Custom Fields.
Takeaways:

How to create a more intuitive front end for clients
How to limit the possibility of site breakage by clients
Reduce the numbers of required plugins.

Presentation Slides »

August 7, 2019 — An introduction to registering custom blocks (via PHP) using ACF and implementing clean templating via Timber
Takeaways:

We can still create custom WordPress sites without having to dig deeply into JavaScript
We can keep our templates clean with Twig
ACF is still awesome and can help keep custom site building overhead low

August 7, 2019 — Whether it is for re-using the same code, experimenting with your code quickly and efficiently, or just for better document management, one of the most important leaps any site builder will ever take in their path towards becoming a developer is learning a version control system, or VCS. Since Git is the standard VCS over 80% of developers, lets roll up our sleeves and dive in. The benefits far outweigh the efforts needed to learn this tooling. Once you start, you will wonder why it took you so long to unleash the power of this awesome tech.
This talk will briefly explore the need for git, the history and use cases. Then we will jump into how to get started and the basic organizational concepts. We will also examine Github, the web based Git hosting service. Bring your laptops to play along at home and get started before you leave the room.
Takeaways:

Basic know how of what git can even do
A history of online collaboration and what that means for Free and Open Source Software projects like WordPress
A path to better collaboration with any developer, or frankly anyone, in the world

Presentation Slides »

August 7, 2019 — Don’t you wish there was a way to write content faster without having to log into your WordPress site? Turns out there is and it is called Markdown, which can be written in any text editor you choose. Based on the basics of HTML and with a goal of making marked up content as readable as possible, Markdown takes only minutes to learn and is the most transportable way you can write your content. Sites like GitHub, Bitbucket and Reddit already expect it and now WordPress does too.

Takeaways:

A working knowledge of how to notate plain text to be rendered as beautiful HTML
A Cheatsheet for everything else
Strategies for content curation a storage using Git

August 7, 2019 — Developers sometimes forget the first time they peeled the cellophane off a fresh WP install. In this session, we’ll discover the best training tips, tools and tactics to keep your users from asking, “Why doesn’t it …?”

Takeaways:

WordPress is built to be simple
Tips on not complicating the interface
A word on Gutenberg and other editors

Presentation Slides »

August 7, 2019 — Gutenberg is more than just the new block editing experience in WordPress. With it came an array of tools that will enrich your interfaces and make your life as a front-end developer simpler. Learn how to make use of what’s newly “in the box” to think outside the block.

Takeaways:

UI components & internationalization
state management & networking
front-end actions & filters

August 6, 2019 — Clients want to work with quality WordPress developers. They want to know that they can get their project done on time, in budget, and that the solution is going to be effective.
Project management aside, writing quality code is the key to delivering on all three of these expectations. If you write poor code, it is going to be harder to read and understand. As a result, it will take longer (and cost the client more money) to add new features. A lack of consistent quality also results in more bugs and a decreased effectiveness of the solution you are creating.
WordPress has a set of coding standards that are designed to provide a consistent level of quality for those who are contributing code to WordPress. However, it just got a lot easier to apply those standards to your own projects. Whether you are creating a theme or writing a plugin, you can leverage an “automated code mentor” to help you provide consistent quality to your clients.
Come learn how you can leverage the WordPress Coding Standards and automation to help you become a quality developer that clients can trust.
Takeaways:

What coding standards are
Why you should care
A simple way to get started today

Presentation Slides »