GPL Driven Development

Over the past few days I’ve been thinking about how it is that a .NET and C++ trained developer like myself came to be in the world of open source and WordPress of all things. And along with that I’ve been encouraging/educating some people to learn how to code in PHP and WordPress. So they usually ask me for books and/or tutorials, but I never really had that when I started with PHP. I simply dived right into the code and, with much praying, hoped I didn’t screw up!

Typically in the WordPress and PHP community a lot of guys tend to moan and groan about the GPL and how it’s screwing things up for the commercial angles, well I’m not going to comment on that as I think most of those people are just making it worse, but what I will say is that it’s helped me a tremendous amount in terms of learning PHP and WordPress.

When I started developing in PHP almost 5 years ago I had no-one locally that I could ask for help as all my mates were .NET developers, and coming from that closed source environment (at that time) I was very hesitant to learn another language. But what I found surprised me – I found a community willing to share and help me. The GPL and open source, in general terms and in the spirit it tries to encourage, allowed me to dig deep into already existing code and learn from others who went before me and wrote some pretty kickass code! And the best part is now that I work for a company who uses the GPL – WooThemes – our users can improve their skills by simply looking at code that I’ve helped write.

And that’s pretty cool in my opinion and why I’m likely not to go back to closed source platforms :-) What do you think and how did you learn to code?

Disclaimer: This is my personal view and does not necessarily reflect the views of WooThemes and/or any of their employees.

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A New Coat of Paint

I’ve been saying I’ve been wanting to put up a new design for my blog for quite a while now, but as it happened I just never got around to it :-( so last night I decided enough was enough, so here it is – the new Jeffikus.com :-) It’s based on Elefolio, which makes sense seeing as I work at WooThemes! And I figured it was about time that the Tumblog plugin author starts actually using the Tumblog plugin!!! Kinda cool to use your own code for yourself. I plan on making a couple of design improvements, starting with my logo. Any thoughts or suggestions?

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Billy Graham on Technology and Faith

A great talk by Billy Graham on technology and faith, I particularly enjoy his comments on King David and his role in developing Israel.

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2010 in Review

What a year! :-) So much has happened both personally and professionally for me, and I’ve much to be grateful for…. (more…)

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Post Formats, Tumblog, and Content Separation

I was recently asked to write a post for the 12 Days of WordPress and BuddyPress about post formats, tumblog, and content separation. Check it out by clicking the title link.

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WooTumblog, Post Formats, Express App – WordCamp Spain 2010 Slides

As promised, here are my slides from WordCamp Spain 2010!

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Google Translate

Google Translate really is amazing. I’m sitting here at WordCamp Spain and I’m using it to understand as much as I can :-) So far I’m following ok.  Quite a fun conference!

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WordCamp Spain

Just a quick note to say that I’m heading to Barcelona today for WordCamp Spain on Saturday! :-) It’s gonna be awesome and I will post my slides and experiences here afterwards. I’ll be presenting on WooTumblog and Post Formats, as well as the Express for WordPress iPhone app.  Check out the title link for more details (you might wanna do it through Google Translate for english).

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