Hailing from Ottawa, Canada, Shawn has been building web applications since the late 90s, with a focus on WordPress since 2011. He is the Director of IT at Actionable, a learning and development startup based in Toronto. He is a core contributor to the WordPress open source project, and has spoken at WordPress events in Canada, the United States and Australia. Shawn is the lead organizer of WordCamp Ottawa 2018.
What’s been your best experience with WordPress?
Getting involved in the community. This has been my first real adventure into Open Source Software
Tell us a bit about your WordCamp Halifax talk.
Code is an art form. Well organized, easily readable code is a thing of beauty. Other code…. well, resembles my art that Mom would have put on the fridge when I was in preschool. My talk will teach you about WordPress’ coding standards, which help everyone involved in the project write consistent, clean, readable code.
What’s your favourite thing about WordCamps, or if your first one… what are you looking forward to?
The Hallway Track. It’s great getting to spend time “in real life” with everyone that I get to interact with online.
Let’s get philosophical… what are you most proud of?
I still remember the day I was sitting around a boardroom table with a client and their clients. My client asked me to make a quick change to the content on the site while we were on a page. I launched the editor, and one of the others around the table exclaimed “Wait?! This site was built in WordPress?”. I loved that I’d created a web application that wasn’t recognizable as a WP site. After all, WordPress is so much more than a blog 🙂
Session Details
Yes, your code works, but is it the best it could be? This talk will guide you through tips and tricks to make your code efficient, safe, and easy to read. It’s a great primer for new developers, and a good reminder for those of us who have developed bad habits over time.
Understand the WordPress Coding Standard
Write Short, Reusable Functions
Begin using Unit Testing to ensure code functions as expected
Begin using UI testing to ensure pages behave as expected
Discuss benefits of code review