Decision-making in WordPress Core Development at WordCamp Europe

I was graciously invited to speak at WordCamp Europe 2016 on the way decisions are made while building WordPress.

It was a pleasure to have the opportunity to share with everyone there — thanks to everyone who helped out; it was an outstanding event.

You can check out the slides below:

An Insider’s Look into 4.5 at WordCamp St. Louis

Had a great weekend at WordCamp St. Louis!

Was honored to be invited to share some of my experiences with WordPress 4.5.  Thanks to the organizers and everyone who attended for a great event!

Check out the slides here:

WordPress 4.5

I’m honored to say that I was the Release Lead for WordPress 4.5 “Coleman”, and it was released, on time, last Wednesday.

I’ll be posting and speaking more about my experiences with the release in the coming months, but for now, a quick thank you note.

Thanks to Adam Silverstein (Release Deputy), Mel Choyce (Release Design Lead), and all of the 298 core contributors from around the world.

Additional thanks to everyone that helps out throughout all the contributor groups in WordPress; it wouldn’t be possible without you. 

Thanks to DreamHost for donating my time to the project. Commitment to Open Source matters.

Finally, thanks to my wife Elizabeth and daughter Sofía for your unfailing love, encouragement, and support throughout the release. ❤️

WP 4.5 Full Credits

Building a VVV Distribution for WordPress Contributor Days

For WordCamp Europe 2015, I was given the opportunity to help a large number of developers get set up for contributing to WordPress Core quickly.

The most cross-platform and standard way of doing this is with VVV — with the only problem being large download size and conference Wi-Fi. Thus, we needed a packaged way to distribute a development environment using flash drives or Adhoc networking.

If you’re in a situation where Wi-Fi won’t be a problem on contributor day, great! If you need a solution for this, read on.

Contents for Contributors

Building a base VVV package

Using a ZIP for VVV is important because otherwise the checkout will have too many files to quickly copy from a flash drive or a local. To build the VVV ZIP package, follow these steps:

  • Clone VVV:
    git clone https://github.com/Varying-Vagrant-Vagrants/VVV.git
  • In the newly-minted VVV directory:
    vagrant up --provider virtualbox

    This will download the box file and also download all of the dependencies upon first provision. That’s important because they’re about as large as the box file, and account for almost a gigabyte of data.

  • To create a base box that includes provisioned packages, run:
    vagrant package --output vvv-contribute.box
  • Minus the .vagrant directory1, zip the folder’s contents, including the newly-minted box, using either the command line or your favorite file manager.

Contributor Steps to Get Started

  • Install VirtualBox
  • Install Vagrant
  • Copy VVV.zip to local drive and extract
  • Add pre-provisioned box to Vagrant:
    vagrant box add ubuntu/trusty64 vvv-contribute.box
  • Optional, and will download, but manages hosts file:
    vagrant plugin install vagrant-hostsupdater
  • Start up Vagrant:
    vagrant up --provider virtualbox

Caveats

  • Once a VirtualBox base box has been added manually from a system, it can’t be automatically updated without removing it, and adding it directly from the web. This means that updates to the Ubuntu base box would need to be done manually by contributors if they want to update later.
  • This will not solve all potential Windows issues. While it worked with the majority of machines, there were some Windows users who could not unzip the file with native file ZIP utility, or had other incompatibilities with Vagrant.

Feedback

Have any questions or suggestions? Let me know in the comments!

1 Edit (05/23/2016) – Looks like Vagrant is including the user ID that created the box in a .vagrant directory, which is causing problems for contributors when starting up the box on their local machines.

A Year in Core at WordCamp LA

At WordCamp LA, I had the opportunity to share a retrospective on the happenings in WordPress core throughout the last year, and a short look into a possible future for WordPress in 4.4, coming in early December!

Thanks to the organizers and volunteers for an excellent event, and to everyone who came by to learn and chat about WordPress core!

You can find the slides in PDF here, or embedded below the break: Continue reading A Year in Core at WordCamp LA