Finely Tuned Consultant: Rick Tuttle

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I tried WordPress version 0.72 back in 2003 after being frustrated with Drupal and Mambo (now called Joomla). I was impressed with the ease of use of the admin from the start but I had a negative reaction to “the loop” and the dependency on php global variables. I began to use WordPress more after plugins were introduced and the community really started to take off. The whole thing just blew UP after hooks were added and people started publishing more plugins and themes and writing blog posts about WordPress tips. The activity and commitment of the WordPress community is what sold me on WordPress and it’s the number one reason I tell my customers they should choose it over other solutions.

I still use my RSS feed reader as my main source of news and updates but also get a lot from Twitter. I follow all the WordPress official feeds, some of the core team members and WP Candy, WPMU and wpMail.me. I page through each and every food and travel pic on ma.tt and even after all of that I always find out something new every month at the Miami WordPress meetup.

While there are still some “rockstars” in the WordPress community, what has impressed me from attending WordCamps and watching videos on WordCamp TV is that the number of people out there who really know their stuff is growing rapidly. The openness of the WordPress community in freely sharing information has actually killed an entire market of gurus who want to sell $500 seminars on discovering the secrets of WordPress. That’s because THERE ARE NO SECRETS! The information and code are freely available and companies like Automattic, WPEngine and the premium theme and plugin vendors have proven that you can run a successful business on that model of openness. So, who should you be paying attention to? Go to any WordCamp or your local meetup and find out.

Clean house when it comes to plugins and themes; if you’re not using it delete it entirely. Get rid of any unnecessary or redundant javascript that is getting loaded and minify. Go with a good host; you get what you pay for.

One time I manually ran a mysql script to change the domain when moving a site. I had a typo and I ended up replacing every post and page on the site with garbage. I did not have a backup. The fail was not the typo but the fact that I didn’t have a backup. Thankfully there are excellent tools for backups and site migration nowadays.

Every time I get an idea to write a plugin it seems there is already one that does pretty much what I want. And if I did have that new idea that no one had ever done yet why would I share it here? 🙂

I think the biggest challenge is going to be the increasing cost of maintaining existing WordPress sites with managing updates, handling potential upgrade conflicts, making backups, and preventing and fixing security breaches. We need to start calculating the long-term costs of using WordPress and inform our customers of those costs before starting work on a new site.

Well, yes, and this is basically a “let’s take the high road” criticism. I think one of the benefits of an open community is that people can freely share their opinions, thoughts and beliefs. There is a worthy standard of tolerance for opposing viewpoints regarding all things, whether technology, culture, politics or religion. I have been surprised at the ugly attitude that some of the more outspoken members of the community have expressed against people who don’t share their opinion in regards to politics and religion. Maybe the problem is that people don’t think or care about who is following them on Twitter. It just sucks to be insulted most of the time when I am following a developer primarily to learn something from them regarding WordPress. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t share their opinions; just stop the nastiness as if people who don’t agree with you are stupid. Ok, that’s my rant.

As I mentioned earlier, the best thing about WordPress is the community. Code is Poetry but WordPress is more than code. It’s people: writers, developers, designers, SEO and marketing professionals, hosting companies, vendors, admins, users and readers. One area I personally want to see improve is the way that people in the WordPress community find work. People need jobs. Businesses need people with the skills. We need to make it easier to put the two together.