Category: Development
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Perceived Speed and Optimization
I was lucky enough to speak at WordCamp Orlando last December. My presentation, titled Perceived Speed and Optimization, discussed some examples of improving user experience through optimistic interfaces. Looking back, I probably should’ve waited a few more months so that I could have come up with more examples and I could’ve talked more in-depth about…
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Anatomy Of A WordPress Hack -Brennen Byrne
This WordCamp presentation by Brennen Byrne is a great introduction to common hacks such as XSS, SQL injection, and Clickjacking. The biggest takewaway for me was that security exploits are usually found in the small details. For example, the XSS vulnerability that Brennen discussed was caused because a single tag out of 5 or 6…
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9 truths that computer programmers know that most people dont.
Macleod Sawyer recently wrote a blog post titled “9 truths that computer programmers know that most people don’t.” While I believe there was truth in each fact, there were a few quotes that stood out. Under the hood, most critical software you use every day (like Mac OS X, or Facebook) contains a terrifying number…
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Modernizing The WordPress Toolbox – Aaron Jorbin
Aaron Jorbin, WordPress committer and developer at Cond Nast, recently spoke at PHP UK Conference 2015 about Modernizing the WordPress toolbox. While I am a WordPress core contributor, I was not aware of all of the steps that went into updating the WordPress contribution and build process over the past few years. It was interesting…
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JavaScript Masterclass | JSConfUS 2013
This past Friday night, a coworker on Mercury, Enej Bajgoric, shared this video of Angelina Fabbro speaking at JSConfUS 2013. Based on the title of the video, I was certain that I would come away with a more advanced understanding of closures or some other JavaScript topic. But, I was pleasantly surprised that the video…
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The Need for Speed: Optimistic Web Interfaces
Shortly after starting at Automattic, I became interested in optimistic interfaces after Beau critiqued some work I had done on O2. One of the best videos I found to introduce and demonstrate optimistic web interfaces was this one of Guillermo Rauch, who happens to be a coworker at Automattic, speaking at dotJS 2013.
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Visualizing Sorts
It’s one thing to know which sort to use given a situation, but it’s much more interesting to see a sort in action. Here are a couple of videos that will show sorts at work.
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React.js Conf Round-up 2015
The React.js conference was held last month, but tickets were not easy to come by. Never fear though, because the React.js team recently came out with a Round-up post of some of the best content from the React.js conference. Being new to React.js myself, I’m looking forward to taking away a few nuggets that I…
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Mouse: A Language for Microcomputers
The only class that I’ve ever truly worried about passing was my compiler design class with Mr. Richard Simpson at Midwestern State University. While the material was interesting at times, it was almost always several levels over my head and I had a hard time keeping up. Even though I constantly worried about passing that…
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How to Squash Commits with Git
Part of my Git workflow at Automattic includes getting a pull request going as soon as possible. I find this workflow useful as I am learning the code base for the latest version of WordPress.com, which is completely different from any codebase I have touched before. Because of this, I try to commit often so…