August 10, 2017 — Learn the basics of functional programming and how to apply its principles & techniques to WordPress code. Referential Transparency, pure functions, first-class functions, currying, and partial application will be explained clearly, without unnecessary buzzwords. Examples in PHP code will show how small, well-tested units of code combine to make powerful functions.

August 9, 2017 — Keynote

August 9, 2017 — Your WordPress site really loves to be updated! Be it core, plugins, or themes there is a LOT of code that you need to update for every site. However, even with tools like wp-cli, updating your site is hard work.

You need to apply updates, test updates, and deploy updates. And do it for every single site for which you are responsible every single time an update comes out. Enter “Automatic WordPress Updates” and making the robots do your updates.

This session will talk about how to use a Continuous Integration and Visual Regression solution to automate WordPress updates with confidence and at scale.

Presentation Slides »

August 9, 2017 — Making an interactive app using WordPress can sometimes be a headache. WordPress was designed primarily for blogging, and WordPress themes don’t make a lot of assumptions about how you should write client-side code. There are many fantastic Javascript frameworks that help developers write solid, maintainable front-end code, and provide compelling, interactive experiences for users.

Using React.js, we’ll show how you can build a simple, stateful, single-page app using the WordPress REST API as a backend.

During this talk, we’ll explain:
– What the WordPress REST API is, and why you should use it.
– Examples of single-page apps built on top of WordPress (including one for higher-ed)
– A quick tutorial / demo of how to integrate React in your WordPress development environment to create a simple app

August 9, 2017 — A case study of how the Harvard Chan School is leveraging Amazon Web Services to power a high performance, elastic and scalable hosting environment for 1900+ websites, on one WordPress Multisite installation.

This session will introduce how the ever-growing panel of Amazon Web Services can be used to perform load balancing, auto-scaling, content delivery, caching, backups, continuous integration and monitoring for WordPress.

Presentation Slides »

August 9, 2017 — If you ask a WordPress contributor what the project’s goal is, chances are we’ll say “to democratize publishing.” However, for over a decade the community that has grown around WordPress has been doing something even more important: our community is democratizing software itself. By creating one of the only web communities to include everybody from writers and photographers to interaction designers and senior software architects, WordPress has done what often seems impossible in Open Source software: we have built a product not just for ourselves, but for everyone. The future of WordPress rests on our ability to recognize and celebrate the spectrum of our community.

August 9, 2017 — Panel discussion on Design

August 9, 2017 — Have you ever wondered WHY you can’t do some things in plugins? Why we don’t let you use your own jQuery or call wp-load or offload images? I’ll tell you the real reasons why your plugins get flagged for fixes beyond the obvious like….

* Call my own jquery
* Call wp-load directly
* Offload images
* Put Google Analytics on the Backend of my plugin/theme
* Use FancyBox 2.x
* Name My Plugin X….

This talk will be CODE LITE, so if you’re working on your first plugin or want to get started, this can be for you!

August 8, 2017 — A panel discussion with leaders and contributors in the WordPress project, and other open source project owners. How do you get started contributing to open source software, like WordPress? How have your contributions to open source helped you?

August 8, 2017 — What distinguishes good WordPress development from great WordPress development? What tools can I use to improve my development process? How do I make my code extensible for future adopters? Why should I bother with following the coding standards and best practices? Will my software scale? How can I ensure my code will perform in the wild?

This crash course session will dive head-first into answering these questions as we explore the development practices of professional WordPress developers. Through exposure to tooling and popular development workflows, you will become familiar with the best practices from the industry. Geared towards creators of all skill levels, this session will help you build confidence when developing with the web’s most popular content management system.