In this episode, Jason and Bridget take a small break in their format to chat about developments this week in the WordPress ecosystem. How will these changes affect how plug-in businesses and freelancers market if at all? Tune in.
Thank you to our sponsors!
The WPwatercooler network is sponsored by ServerPress makers of DesktopServer. Be sure to check them out at https://www.serverpress.com as well as Kinsta.
If you’re interested in sponsoring the 40-minute mark of this show, check out the details on our sponsor page. We offer episode by episode spoken ads, rather than large contracts. A show by you for you.
Jeff Chandler Leaves WPTavern
Bridget thinks his editorial voice will be sorely missed.
Journalism tries to get both sides whereas editorial content should have opinion.
Jason was more intrigued by the use of service accounts for connected services on multi user websites.
Migrating a one person 10 year old site to some one else is not as easy as it could be. Lots of email and password changes lol
— Jeff (@jeffr0) August 13, 2019
Both Bridget and Jason wonder who will now provide timely, non-biased WordPress news. “Hot takes on WPwatercooler.com” is still valid news. And, honestly, most of us who comment on WordPress are also Inside Baseball. So, we’re commenting with our own source material.
Thanks, Jeff for being awesome for ten years!
Bridget’s Trip to Montréal
Bridget loved WordCamp Montréal. It was extra special because she got to see Breann McDede’s first presentation.
“Events take time, organization, and thought.” @breannmcdede #WCMTL pic.twitter.com/m4c4bU0IEV
— Bridget Willard (@BridgetMWillard) August 11, 2019
Also, it was really neat to see how the WordPress community in Montréal embraces bilingualism. As Michel Bluma says, “#BonjourHi.”
Can't get much more Montreal than that. #BonjourHi
— Michal Bluma (@isotrope) August 12, 2019
PHP 7.5 — P++ Ending Backwards Compatibility
From PHP Storm.
“P++ – The controversy and accusations in PHP Internals over the removal of short tags
<?, explicit call-site send-by-ref syntax, and other discussions eventually resulted in an unexpected proposal from Zeev Suraski – create a new PHP dialect. The working name P++ is not accidental here, as Zeev suggests creating a “sister” language, like C++ for C. PHP and P++ are supposed to be developed side by side within a single runtime. In the new P++ it will be possible to implement a lot of revolutionary improvements, to deprecate legacy, and clear things up without thinking about backward compatibility. Since the language would have new branding, it would not have this bad reputation. A “classic” PHP would get all the performance and other non-syntax features but maintain backward compatibility.” Roman Pronskiy
How does this affect WordPress?
WordPress 5.0 created an unintentional fork, Bridget says, because plugin and theme developers have three choices:
- Support 5.0
- Support 4.9.x
- Support Both
All of those choices are business resource decisions.
Some people say PHP’s decision to possibly abandon backward compatibility won’t affect WordPress. (Click the heading for the PHP storm article.)
“1) Shortcodes ≠ short tags
2) PHP 7.4 is already in beta and will be released later this year
3) This proposal is not suggesting abandoning the main binary. It’s more like a different interpretation mode that would be included with PHP. Everything could still work the same” William Earnhardt
Caldera Joins Ninja Forms
“That is one partnership that I feel warm in my soul about,” Bridget says. Caldera will continue to be developer-focused and Ninja Forms will stay customer-facing.
This isn’t a case where a company is being sold for parts like a WordPress junkyard.
“Josh Pollock, who co-founded CalderaWP in 2015 with Christie Chirinos, will be joining Saturday Drive as VP of Engineer Experience, along with three other employees from the company, bringing Saturday Drive’s total crew number to 25. Chirinos began working as a product manager at Liquid Webearlier this year.” Sarah Gooding
Automattic Buys Tumblr
Bridget thinks Automattic is buying users so they can sell out. She is hoping after the sale of Automattic, Matt Mullenweg will focus on the WordPress Project. This eliminates the c. Maybe Automattic needed the carried loss for their taxes. But she isn’t a tax lawyer and doesn’t play one on TV.
“There’s a way to make sure [the WordPress.com] userbase goes up.” Jason Tucker
How about the articles saying “WordPress Owner?“
This was a bit controversial. And it’s a real issue with who owns the trademark versus who owns the software.
It’s interesting that all of the articles say it was sold to the “Owner of WordPress” and not Automattic.
Is it confusing because Matt is dual CEO of https://t.co/mm0sYJYqx2./com? If journalists are confused, I’m concerned for regular consumers. https://t.co/QT37i3lQj1
— Kinney Firm (@KinneyFirm) August 12, 2019
Will Automattic’s Tumblr Still Allow Porn?
What about the “adult content” on WordPress? Also, what is porn? Did the LBGTQ community need this space from a psychological standpoint? WordPress is a culture of inclusion. This might be super good.
“When you’re talking about sexuality, some people consider that porn.” Bridget Willard
Will Gutenberg end up on Tumblr?
According to my friend “Ben” (whose name is actually Daniel Olsen) who spoke about JAM Stack at WCMTL, Gutenberg is a layer that you can put on any CMS.
“Gutenberg on Tumblr would kill Medium. So this is like a win-win-win for Automattic.” Bridget Willard
Short Codes and Block Editors
Dealing with short codes in a block editor world when using a page builder.
Ben Meredith with Better Click to Tweet talked about some of his frustrations on Twitter.
It's an interesting time in WordPress plugin development and support.
As an example, there's no way that I can truly help this user, who just wants his old tinyMCE button back, because he's using a premium page builder that I don't have access to. https://t.co/B0Vdxtg087
— Ben Meredith @benunc@fosstodon.org (@benUNC) August 14, 2019
Proposal to Auto Update Old WP Versions to 4.7
“Apply security updates to the latest 6 versions, and auto-update insecure sites to the oldest secure version.” Ian Dunn
I added mine, too.
It's about 2 million sites using 3.7-4.6.https://t.co/39k4MEkTFz
My comment is awaiting approval.
— Bridget Willard (@BridgetMWillard) August 10, 2019
Update since airing:
Bridget attended the Core chat about this subject that was held 19 Aug 19. She compiled data from BuiltWith.com to show that over two million sites would be affected or about 8% of WordPress sites.
As an aside, WPBuffs responded to Bridget’s Instagram Post offering 10% of their services.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B1cLY60laoe/
Tool or Tip of the Week
This Tool or Tip of the week is brought to you by Kinsta. If you are you tired of unreliable or slow hosting check out Kinsta.com, who takes managed WordPress hosting to the next level. Powered by Google Cloud, all their plans include PHP 7.3, SSH access for developers, one-click staging area, 20 global data centers, free SSL, free CDN and 24×7 expert support who will also migrate your site free of charge. Kinsta.com
This week Bridget and Jason are both thinking about task management and people management.
Jason likes cloze.com for relationship management.
Bridget’s into airtable.com as way to track business development communication.
Do you have any tools or tips we should know about?
We’d love to hear from you. What are your experiences with this subject?
Tell us in the comments below.
Leave a Reply