August 5, 2017 — Do you dread deploying new WordPress code for clients? *raises hand* It’s weird to feel that way. Deploying WordPress code isn’t rocket science after all (or maybe it is and no one told me!).

It tends to come down to opening our favorite FTP client and pressing the upload button. Easy-peasy, right? Of course, not! (Things are never that easy…) You’re also refreshing the web page in the browser while praying that you don’t get a white screen of death.

It doesn’t have to be that way. You can deploy your WordPress code with confidence! It just comes down to creating the proper workflows and the right automation.

This is what you’ll learn in this talk. We’ll go over what makes a successful deployment workflow. You’ll also get an overview of the tools that you can use to automate deployments. It’s everything that you need to get started on your quest for safer WordPress deployments!

March 27, 2017 — Ok, so you’re a kickass WordPress developer. You’re always looking to learn new things. You read every technical blog post that you come across. You try your best to apply them in your WordPress project. Things are going well, but you’re not sure if there’s more that you could do to hone your skills.

Why yes there is! You could also teach. But you might be wondering, “Seriously, how can teaching make me a better developer?” That’s a good question! And that’s what I’ll share with you in this talk.

I’ve dedicated a significant amount of time to teaching. I write a lot on my personal site and sometimes on other WordPress educational sites. I also speak at WordCamps and local meetups. These teaching opportunities have been essential to help me grow as developers.

The good news is that you too can use teaching as a powerful learning tool! This talk will show you how. You’ll learn how to use teaching to build your development chops. You’ll also see how to do it so that what you give back benefits the WordPress community.

Presentation Slides »

September 25, 2016 — You’ve heard of the good ol’ school PHP loops. You have your “for” loops, your “foreach” loops, your “while” loops, your “fruit” loops… Well maybe not that last one!

As a WordPress developer, you use arrays and loops all the time. They’re an essential part of your developer toolbox. But do you know everything about them?

PHP has a wealth of array functions. They’re used by PHP experts to make their life easier. They let you reduce the amount of PHP code you need. This helps prevent bugs and makes your code more maintainable.

You’ll learn about functions like array_filter, array_map and array_reduce. All within the context of regular WordPress work. By the end of this talk, loops won’t look at you the same way ever again.

Presentation Slides »

May 3, 2016 — Do you remember when you could run a “fast” WordPress site with just an Apache server and PHP? Yeah, those were days! Things were a lot less complicated then. Now, everything has to load lightning fast! Visitors don’t have the same expectations about loading times as they used to. A slow site can have serious implications for you or your client. You just can’t have a site that feels fast to your visitors without adding a few more gears to your server engine. During this talk, you’ll learn what makes up the modern WordPress server stack. You’ll see how the various pieces fit together to make your WordPress site fast. You’ll leave knowing what your next steps are to get your own modern WordPress server stack.

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April 10, 2016 — Take a moment to think about who you trust online. What do they have in common? There’s a good chance that they thought you something valuable. That’s how you remember them and it’s also why you trust them.

That trust that you have in them can translate to different things. Sure, they might want to sell you something. But it doesn’t have. You might want to hire them to work on a project or your company because you respect their opinion. You might want to use their open source project because you trust their coding ability.

All these benefits came from teaching you something valuable. And the good news is that you can do this too! You have unique insights that you can share that can be of value to others. Are you ready to start!?

Perfect, then this talk is for you! It’ll look at some of the obstacles that you’ll face on your journey into teaching. You’ll see how you can overcome them so that you can start building trust online.

Presentation Slides »

December 10, 2015 — Let unit testing save you from this nightmare. It’s a lot like coding with a safety net (or body armor if that’s how you roll). It lets you go a bit crazy while minimizing repercussions (as long as the police don’t show up).
Want to try something new? No worries! It’ll let you know if something isn’t working as it should. That’s how most paid plugins maintain a high level of quality over the years.