April 30, 2025 — We’re witnessing a fundamental shift in how humans interact with digital content. For decades, browsers have served as our gateway to the web, translating human intent into clicks, searches, and navigation through visual interfaces. However, the rise of AI assistants and Large Language Models is introducing a radically different paradigm – one where natural conversation replaces point-and-click, and personalized AI agents become our primary interface to digital services. This shift has profound implications for content creators, publishers, and businesses in the WordPress ecosystem. As users increasingly interact with content through AI intermediaries rather than direct browsing, the traditional focus on visual design and user interface might give way to structured data and semantic meaning. We’re already seeing this transition begin with AI-powered search and voice interfaces, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg. We’ll explore how this transformation could reshape the content landscape: The evolution from linked pages to AI-synthesized insights backed by referenced sources How content might need to be structured differently to serve both human browsers and AI agents ? The potential shift from visually designed websites to content APIs and machine-readable formats The changing nature of content discovery and consumption For WordPress users and developers, this presents both challenges and opportunities. We’ll examine: How to prepare your WordPress content for AI consumption and discoverability Strategies for maintaining relevance in an AI-intermediated world Ways to leverage WordPress’s strengths in content organization and metadata Practical steps to optimize your digital presence for both traditional browsing and AI interaction The importance of structured data and semantic markup in the age of AI Most crucially, we’ll discuss the broader implications for the open web and digital publishing. What happens when AI assistants become the primary gatekeepers of content? How do we maintain content authenticity and attribution? What role will traditional CMS platforms play in this new landscape? This talk provides practical insights for content creators, developers, and business owners to prepare for and thrive in this emerging paradigm shift, while examining the potential risks and opportunities it presents for the WordPress community and the web as a whole.

April 9, 2024 — In the constantly evolving landscape of software development, the quest for bug-free code remains a pinnacle challenge for even the most seasoned developers.
This talk aims to transform the way we approach this challenge, not just as a technical hurdle, but as an opportunity to elevate the entire coding process. In this session, we delve into the core principle that most bugs are born from unchecked assumptions. By identifying and questioning these assumptions, we can implement a proactive strategy to prevent bugs before they occur. This talk will guide attendees through effective methodologies to critically analyze their code, fostering a deeper understanding of how assumptions can lead to errors and how to mitigate them.

We will explore several key areas:

– The Psychology of Assumptions in Coding: Understanding how easy it is to make assumptions and how they can lead to bugs.
– Practical Techniques for Assumption-Proofing Your Code: Implementing strategies such as rigorous type-checking, automated testing, and peer code reviews to safeguard against bugs.
– Real-World Examples: Analyzing case studies where assumption-led bugs caused major issues and how they were resolved.
– Transforming Coding Philosophy: Shifting from a reactive to a proactive mindset in coding, emphasizing prevention overcorrection.
– Attendees will leave with not just an understanding of common pitfalls in coding but also armed with practical tools and strategies to enhance their coding practices. This talk is ideal for developers, team leads, and anyone passionate about elevating the quality of software development through mindful and strategic coding practices.

October 13, 2023 — This talk examines what performance and scalability mean from a server-side development perspective and how to optimize for this environment.

It covers basic mechanisms like profiling, deferred processing and caching first.

Then go deeper into code that simply needs to run faster or in a more scalable way, including topics such as loop optimization, static data, opcaches and other concepts.

June 24, 2022 — The Open Web, as impactful as it is for our society, is currently in danger and has been for while now.

There is a constant pressure from walled gardens and app stores to monopolize on information, at the detriment of all but a few. Nothing new on that front, right? We all know by now how important the Open Web is and that we need to safeguard it, especially in the WordPress community.

Yet here we are, still keeping on doing the things that hurt the Open Web, and supporting the platforms that endanger it.

In this talk, we’ll look past the bare minimums of accessibility and performance to discuss how UX and monetization relate to each other, and how an healthy Open Web might need to look for alternative business models.

December 19, 2019 — Gutenberg is a major change to how you will develop software for WordPress. It starts with the WordPress editor but is planned to slowly take over the entire admin interface.

If you already have existing plugin or theme code that you need to maintain and make ready for the upcoming Gutenberg update, you will probably face some architectural design challenges.

This talk will first provide an overview of the general concepts that govern development in the Gutenberg era, and then discuss the different tricks & techniques you can use to gradually move your existing code from here to there, in a clean transition.

Presentation Slides »

November 30, 2019 — AMP mit WordPress nutzen

AMP ist ein Open-Source-HTML-Framework, das eine einfache Möglichkeit bietet, Webseiten zu erstellen, die schnell laden, butterweich scrollen und vor allem das Benutzererlebnis an erste Stelle setzen.

In diesem Talk wird Alain zuerst in groben Zügen erläutern, was AMP genau ist (und was es nicht ist), welche Ziele es verfolgt, und warum man es nutzen würde.

Danach wird er mehr in Detail gehen und vorführen wie man AMP als Entwickler in einem WordPress-Projekt nutzen kann.

November 13, 2019 — If you build websites, you inevitably run into problems. Maybe there’s no way to achieve an aspect of your design using CSS. Or maybe there’s a device feature you really wish you could tap into using JavaScript. Or perhaps the in-browser DevTools don’t give you a key insight you need to do your job. We want to know your pain.

November 13, 2019 — Joining such a welcoming and inspiring community as is the WordPress project can be exhilarating and makes people want to contribute their part to join the movement and strengthen their feeling of belonging.

The initial enthusiasm can easily lead to contributors slowly spiraling into overcommitment and a feeling of obligation and responsibility towards the project. There’s a cost attached to anything we do, even when we’re talking about unpaid volunteer work done in the spare time. And that cost will be paid in some way, no matter what.

We need to more openly talk about the adverse effects of doing open source contributions in an unsustainable way, destigmatize the money topic when it comes to “”free”” software and directly address immediate issues of frustration and burn-out as they surface.

Let’s all have our fellow contributors’ backs, and make sure we’re all in it for the long run!

October 29, 2019 — Modern infrastructure technologies like serverless computing and real-time databases offer a huge potential for new and improved online user experiences.

In this session, we’ll go through a practical use case to find out how we can harness their power in the context of WordPress.

We’ll build a Gutenberg block that shows status updates, to be incorporated into a status page. We’ll use serverless computing to allow adding status updates via a Slack command, and we’ll use a real-time database so that all visitors receive these updates in real-time without any impact on our WordPress server.

March 27, 2019 — Four key members of the WordPress community discuss what the future of WordPress holds – a panel discussion led by Ana Silva.