David Bisset is this week’s Featured Consultant. David is out of Southern Florida, and when he’s not making WordPress AND BuddyPress sites look amazing, he’s busy chasing his 3 kids around, making sure they grow up right. David is also an organizer of WordCamp Miami, making sure the conference keeps its edge.
In his own words…
I’m particularly interested and focused on startup projects and anything WordPress/BuddyPress related (which at this time is majority of my work). Of course, i’m always interested in building interactive applications, especially if they are based in a PHP/mySQL environment.
When was the first time that you really got excited about WordPress and at what point did you decide to make it your career?
Honestly, i didn’t really get excited about WordPress until after my 4th or 5th client site with it. Kinda like dating, I suppose (eventually my wife will find this – reading and laughing). My previous experience with CMS was (from what I can remember) Drupal and PHP-Nuke. After spending an entire week with PHP-Nuke, it was either throw myself out a window or try this thing i stumbled upon called WordPress. Back then, WordPress 1.5 just came out. And after using it for a while, I decided I could make a living out of it since many people were starting to discover they wanted a CMS at the time.
Where do you go first to get your WP news, insights, and updates?
I’m a lazy guy, so alot of my daily news and updates comes from Twitter and (believe it or not) sometimes i do catch something good in the WordPress news feed in any default WP dashboard. Yep, it’s rare but it happens. When it comes to WordPress news, WP Candy is hard to beat. WP Tavern is also a good place to visit. I also enjoy the tips from http://www.catswhocode.com/blog/
What WP consultants deserve more love than they get? Who should we be paying attention to?
I split this into two categories: local and “global”. There are a number of local developers using WordPress – in South Florida (my area) and other areas in the world – that probably should get exposure and deserve that attention. Often in WordPress meetups I’m impressed by how people are using WordPress. Local “average Joe coder” people need to stand out more by taking part in local WordPress meetups and applying to speak at WordCamps.
As for “global” I think the developers and consultants that deserve more love right now are the ones working with the cousins of WordPress – bbPress and BuddyPress. @jjj (John James Jacoby) has been doing an amazing job with BuddyPress development AND bbPress 2. @boone – his attention to BuddyPress should be praised and seems like he comes out with a cool plugin for BuddyPress every few weeks. If you haven’t checked out his blog and you fiddle with BuddyPress, drop what you’re doing and check it out. And you can’t mention BP plugins without Paul Gibbs (@pgibbs). His achievement plugin is well-known but he also has other plugins underneath that belt of his. @modemlooper for his work for BP mobile. @jeffayre for his past work. My buddy @ptahdunbar deserves a mention. Finally @nacin could always use more love (this is a last minute addition because his check DID clear).
What performance tips would you give to other pros (as related to speed, scalability, security, plugins, backup, etc.)?
I have been using WordPress Transients API lately for storing cached data in certain situations, and I’ve seen some performance enhancements as a result. It’s so easy to use, plus plugins like W3 Total Cache work alongside it.
Confess to us your biggest moment of WP fail?
There are so many. I could write a book. The more experienced you are in something – especially coding – the more mistakes you make. The more fails you make eventually. One of the latest ones was trying to figure out why a site wasn’t being indexed by Google – turns out I had the privacy setting turned to block search engines. Kinda like trying to drive a car out of the driveway with the parking brake on.
If you were going to spend this weekend creating a plugin that doesn’t exist, what would it be?
Something for BuddyPress. Most likely a plugin that allows the current community of a site to decide/vote who among the people requesting to register to the site actually gain access. Kinda like a reverse-Survivor.
Do you use Themes & Child Themes, Roll your own, or both?
I use child themes at times, but I like creating something from scratch where it makes sense.
What’s your favorite theme or them framework? Why?
I don’t have a particular favorite theme – i’m impressed with things I see from WooThemes, a few from ThemeForest, and the smaller theme developers. I really don’t use frameworks.
Favorite plugin?
BuddyPress. It’s a plugin. Judges? (Pause) Yes – they are going to allow it!
Least favorite plugin?
The one that isn’t coded with the latest and best coding practices. You know who you are.
What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever done with Custom Post Types?
I created a custom post type just to get BuddyPress profiles searchable in the midst of searching regular posts. Hard to explain, maybe someday i’ll write a blog post about it. And someday i’ll paint my office too….
What do you think is the biggest challenge that WP consultants will face in 2012?
I think one of the biggest challenges for any good WP consultant is giving back to the community. The spirit is there, but not many have the time. I think many consultants want to help and contribute to WordPress more, and it will be a challenge for many to find the time and opportunity. Another challenge: how to expand the travel budget to travel to more WordCamps and partake of WordCamp after-parties.
If you could change one thing today about WP, what would it be?
I would love to see something that would address performance with default installs. Not saying a cache plugin needs to be included by default, but something to protect the average joe from getting overwhelmed by traffic if they are linked from sites like Gizmodo or Daring Fireball.
Where do you see WordPress going in the next 2-3 years?
Since i’m not a core developer (yet), hard to say. I would think it wouldn’t be too far off from today, expect it would be leaner and even more efficient.
Tell us a story where you saved the WP day for yourself or on a client project. What made the difference for you?
Timmy was trapped at the bottom of the well, so WP ran to tell me… wait…
To be honest, I can’t remember in recent memory about any huge saves. But it’s all the little ones that I think matter even more. About being able to find out that a service a client wants to use DOES have a WordPress plugin, or some crazy functionality (no matter how much you fight the client on) does exist in a WordPress plugin and is just a download away. Also being able to install WordPress with it’s great backend interface and the great default themes (twentyten and twentyeleven) have managed to get me out of some jams by being able to whip up proof of concepts (and sometimes entire sites) within a day or two.
What’s the biggest misconception you encounter about WordPress, and how do you clear it up for your clients?
That it could literally do anything. Or, more accurately that it’s developers think it can do everything. Many times WordPress is the best or a very good solution but sometimes it’s not. I think alot of people – but not necessary clients – think that WordPress is “just for blogs” and can never be a “true CMS”. These days, you use the right tool for the right job but it’s important to see WordPress as more than just one kind of tool.
If you were interviewing another WordPress developer for a job, what is the first question you would ask and why?
“Have you forsaken other CMS and blog platforms for the sake of WordPress?” Sounds cool.
Thanks David!
Hey guys, if you’ve read this far, then go visit David’s site and go hire him for your next project, http://www.davidbisset.com. He is super awesome.
“…alot of my daily news…”
ALOT!