{"id":2108,"date":"2012-12-14T10:00:27","date_gmt":"2012-12-14T16:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/?p=2108"},"modified":"2024-06-06T09:37:57","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T14:37:57","slug":"mark-jaquith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/mark-jaquith\/","title":{"rendered":"Finely Tuned Consultant – Mark Jaquith"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mark<\/a>This morning, I’m very excited to bring you the Finely Tuned Consultant, Mark Jaquith edition. Mark is one of the leading developers on WordPress Core, and was an early leader in the WordPress Community, helping to define code standards and work closely with the fledgling Community as it was developing its strong identity. Mark dropped out of college to do WordPress Development<\/a> full-time in 2006.<\/p>\n

Mark describes himself first as a family man, he’s got a wife and two young boys at home, and blogs about a variety of his well-developed interests on his blog, markjaquith.com<\/a>. You can go there to read about what he’s into, and also get a well-researched, fully formed perspective on a variety of things, including how he buys T-Shirts for his lanky 6’4″ frame. That blog post is more interesting than it should be.<\/p>\n

In his own words:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“I’m very rational and idea-driven. I have\u00a0opinions (usually well-researched) on almost everything. I wish I had\u00a0a thousand lives to live and keep on learning. I relish solving\u00a0problems. I’m\u00a0one of the Lead Developers of the WordPress core, and love\u00a0making WordPress fast, scalable, secure, and\u00a0functional.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, onto Mark’s Answers:<\/strong><\/p>\n

When was the first time that you really got excited about WordPress and at<\/strong>\u00a0what point did you decide to make it your career?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I tried WordPress in 2003 and didn’t like it very much. \u00a0<\/span>By 2004, I was\u00a0a convert. The plugin system was a huge selling point.\u00a0In 2006 I\u00a0realized that I loved it, I was good at it, and it had gotten to the\u00a0point where I could make a living doing it. I dropped out of college,\u00a0went to WordCamp (the first one \u2014 it was just called “WordCamp”) and\u00a0converted to full time WordPress consulting.<\/p>\n

Where do you go first to get your WP news, insights, and updates?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I follow IRC, some mailing lists, the make.wordpress.org sites, and then I subscribe to the blogs of people who make interesting things\u00a0with WordPress. I also rely on Twitter a lot as a way for people to\u00a0bubble interesting WP stuff up to me.<\/p>\n

What WP consultants deserve more love than they get? Who should we be paying<\/strong>\u00a0attention to?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cristi Burc\u0103 (“Scribu”). His Posts to Posts allows you to do really\u00a0powerful stuff with custom content types in WordPress, and his\u00a0contributions to WP-CLI (a command line tool for WordPress) have made\u00a0it really easy to script, debug, and control WordPress.<\/p>\n

What performance tips would you give to other pros (as related to speed,<\/strong>\u00a0scalability, security, plugins, backup, etc.)?<\/strong><\/p>\n

WordPress starts out 100% dynamic. Identify the areas where it doesn’t\u00a0need to be dynamic, and cache those. Rarely change the sidebar? Cache\u00a0it for 10 minutes. Get a lot of traffic to the front page? Cache it\u00a0for one minute. By making common sense decisions like that, based on\u00a0your knowledge of how a site is used, you can get WordPress page views\u00a0to scale just as well as a static site (while having a whole lot more\u00a0flexibility).<\/p>\n

Confess to us your biggest moment of WP fail?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I believe my first commit to WordPress had a security vulnerability.\u00a0We were all pretty na\u00efve about security back then. We (and the whole\u00a0industry) have learned a lot in the last six or seven years.\u00a0[<\/span>ED: Core is incredibly secure these days.]<\/em><\/p>\n

If you were going to spend this weekend creating a plugin that doesn’t<\/strong>\u00a0exist, what would it be?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I want to build a plugin that allows you to press “record” on a\u00a0staging site, make content and options changes, hit “stop”, and then\u00a0export those actions as a “macro” that you can check into your repo as\u00a0code which will play back when you deploy, so that people can roll out\u00a0code changes and content changes simultaneously.<\/p>\n

Do you use Themes & Child Themes, Roll your own, or both?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have a couple of child themes, and a couple of standalone themes.<\/p>\n

What’s your favorite theme or theme framework? Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I love the new TwentyTwelve<\/a> theme (the default theme, starting with\u00a0version 3.5). It’s a great starting point that can be easily modified\u00a0in a child theme.\u00a0I’m also a big fan of Underscores<\/a>, Automattic’s starter theme.<\/p>\n

Favorite plugin?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Posts to Posts<\/a>. Powerful, polished, pomegranate. Sorry, I ran out of\u00a0p-words in my alliteration.\u00a0[ED: You’re forgiven.]<\/p>\n

Least favorite plugin?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Probably any of the SEO ones. They have too many options and they\u00a0re\u00ebnforce the mindset that everyone needs to be micro-managing their\u00a0SEO. Most people haven’t completed the most important SEO task of all:\u00a0write original, compelling, timely content! Jumping into onto the\u00a0endless SEO tweaking treadmill is a waste of most people’s time.<\/p>\n

What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever done with Custom Post Types?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I made a baby gear review site with my\u00a0wife that uses Custom Post Types for Departments, Needs, and Products\u00a0(using Posts to Posts to connect them). The result is something very\u00a0different from your standard WordPress site (and, I hope, a model for\u00a0how people can make affiliate sites that aren’t sleazy, sloppy, and
\nboring).<\/p>\n

What do you think is the biggest challenge that WP consultants will face in<\/strong>\u00a02013?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Figuring out business models that work in the WordPress ecosystem and\u00a0scale beyond their time constraints.<\/p>\n

If you could change one thing today about WP, what would it be?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The post editing experience. It’s the core of the application, and it\u00a0has received much less attention than it deserves.<\/p>\n

Where do you see WordPress going in the next 2-3 years?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Onto mobile devices. Both in terms of creation and consumption. This\u00a0is the future of the web, and we have to be on board.<\/p>\n

Tell us a story where you saved the WP day for yourself or on a client<\/strong>
\nproject. \u00a0What made the difference for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The most fun I have doing consulting is when someone has a problem\u00a0they’ve been trying to fix (often with other consultants) for days,\u00a0weeks, or longer, and I can identify the problem just after hearing a\u00a0few of the symptoms, and have a fix out in just a few minutes. These\u00a0are the days that I don’t feel bad charging for what I do. [ED:\u00a0There are some great stories people tell about calling Mark for help and getting a code problem fixed almost immediately. The story is often accompanied by sheepish laughter, and “that’s why you hire Mark.”]<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

What’s the biggest misconception you encounter about WordPress, and how do<\/strong>
\nyou clear it up for your clients?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I hear a lot of misconceptions, but they usually follow the pattern of\u00a0“WordPress can’t do X”. 98% of the time, it can. Sometimes people get\u00a0too focused on default capabilities. Yes, it’s an app, but it’s also a\u00a0publishing platform. As for how I clear that up, I tell them how I’d\u00a0make that feature in WordPress, then I go do it!<\/p>\n

If you were interviewing another WordPress developer for a job, what is the<\/strong>\u00a0first question you would ask and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I like to ask about things that show attention to detail, such as\u00a0questions about the security APIs. People who are sloppy coders tend\u00a0to be ignorant or apathetic about things whose impact they can’t\u00a0directly measure.<\/p>\n

What did I miss? \u00a0Here’s your chance to fill in the blanks and add something<\/strong>
\nyou want people to know about you!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let’s go completely off topic. I discovered something amazing this\u00a0year. You know that high end, crazy fast remote control car that you\u00a0couldn’t afford as a 10-year old? You can totally afford it as an\u00a0adult, and it’s just as fun as you thought it would be. I am the envy\u00a0of all the other fathers when I take my kids (and my car) to the park.<\/p>\n

Thanks Mark!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mark is one of the cornerstones of the WordPress Community. Due to his work on Core, and on client projects, he has earned a reputation that precedes him. And although his work speaks for itself, you can mosey on over to see it at\u00a0CoveredWebServices.com<\/a>, and follow him on Twitter, @MarkJaquith<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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