Eric Binnion

  • Should I Apply to Automattic Now or Later?

    A reader of Man of Hustle emailed me last night and asked for some advice before applying to Automattic:

    Hi Eric,

    I came across your Man of Hustle blog while researching about working for Automattic. Thank you for your blog by the way; I really appreciate your openness and passion. I’m interested in applying for the Code Wrangler position at Automattic and I was wondering if could trouble you for some advice.

    First, some background about myself. I currently work as a web developer for [redacted] where I’m doing Ruby on Rails development for [redacted] web application. I’ve also had solid experience with Java, Perl and PHP in prior jobs. I’m more of a back end developer, but of course I’m comfortable with HTML, CSS, JavaScript and jQuery. Here’s summary of my career history. [redacted link]

    So I have extensive professional web development experience and use alot of open source libraries and tools on the job. However, I’m lacking in open source contributions. I love programming but that manifests itself more in my professional life. I do want to get more involved in contributing to open source projects. I just need to squeeze in the time among my other responsibilities and commitments outside of work.

    Also, although I have solid experience with PHP, I don’t have much experience with WordPress. That is about to change as I have volunteered to rebuild a friend’s non-profit organization’s website on WordPress.

    And now finally my question. Do you think I should go ahead and apply for the Code Wrangler position now or should I wait a few months to build up my WordPress experience and open source contributions and then apply? Which choice would maximize my chances of getting the job?

    Well, Should This Person Apply to Automattic?

    First, I don’tevermind giving advice when asked. That being said, one should always understand that advice is very much an opinion and can be wrong.

    In this specific case, I would recommend that the reader go ahead and apply to Automattic, based off of the following:

    • Many Automatticians weren’t hired their first time.
    • I believe that a no from Automattic is often more like a “not right now“
    • The application review process takes a while

    And while you’re waiting for a response, I would go ahead and:

    • Get some experience with WordPress
    • Get active in open source
    • Deep dive into JavaScript

    JavaScript is quickly becoming an essential skill at Automattic as well as in web development in general. I would suggest that you get at least some experience with Backbone JS and/or Facebook React to get started.

    Disclaimer: I have no input on the hiring process, so am, unfortunately, not the best person to ask. So, take this with a grain of salt.

  • Increase GoDaddy max_execution_time

    I recently moved a couple of my sites from Dreamhost to GoDaddy’s managed WordPress hosting.

    While one of the websites migrated perfectly fine, the other website had issues with the WordPress importer failing. :/

    My best guess of what was happening is that the GoDaddy max_execution_time was set quite low, which was causing the importer to fail. I confirmed this by downloading the phpinfo plugin which showed the following:

    GoDaddy max_execution_time before

    Let’s Increase the GoDaddy max_execution_time

    It took a bit for me to figure out how to increase the max_execution on GoDaddy’s managed WordPress hosting, but after quite a bit of search I found an article on GoDaddy’s support portal that describes where to put the PHP initialization files for the varying GoDaddy hosting products.

    Easily enough, the PHP initialization file for GoDaddy’s managed WordPress hosting is located at html, which is the initial directory upon logging in to SFTP.

    So, to increase GoDaddy max_execution_time, all I had to do was:

    • Open an SFTP connection
    • In the same directory as wp-config.php, create a .user.ini file. Note the leading .
    • Lastly, in this .user.ini file, I added the following:

    [code lang=text]
    max_execution_time = 180
    [/code]

    The above will increase the GoDaddy max_execution_time to 3 minutes, which you can verify yourself by using the phpinfo plugin mentioned above.

    GoDaddy ini After

    Unfortunately for me, increasing the GoDaddy max_execution_time didn’t fix my issue of the WordPress importer failing. I ended up moving my site to WP Engine which worked like a charm.

  • Thoughts After 6 Months at Automattic

    My 6 month anniversary of working at Automattic was just a few days ago on January 14th.

    I had started this post that day, but surprisingly, I found it very hard to come up with the words to describe what I think and feel about working at Automattic.

    But, now I’ve had a few days to think about what to say, and here are a few topics I’d like to talk about to give you a better idea about what working at Automattic means to me.

    My Team

    The thing I truly love the most about working at Automattic is Team Mercury.

    Mercury has recently grown as of a week ago, so for the first part of this, let’s consider the team members that went to Rome.

    • Beau Lebens
    • Allen Snook
    • Jennifer Dodd
    • Kevin Conboy
    • Oguz Kocer

    Even though we work primarily through text, I catch myself laughing out loud randomly throughout the day.

    I also have a huge amount of respect for each one of them, and in some way, each one of them has taught me something in the past 6 months. Sometimes I catch myself feeling like I’m the dumbest one on the team which is a great place to be in and learn.

    Recently we took on a few other members from another team, including:

    • Enej Bajgoric
    • Michael Arestad
    • Miguel Lezama
    • Rocco Tripaldi

    While I’ve only been working with this second group of team members for about a week, I feel like they bring a lot to the team in terms of knowledge and personality. So, it’ll be great to get to know them better over the next several months.

    Typical Work Day

    I’m not sure that I have a true “typical” work day, but one day of work might look something a bit like this for me:

    • Wake up between 8:30 – 9:30
    • Start looking at posts/messages/Slack/etc. to catch up on previous day/night stuff
    • Be at coffee shop some time between 10 and 11 am at the latest
    • Watercooler with team mates as well as replying to messages/posts/Slack messages
    • Start programming at about 11:30
    • Take a break between 2-3 pm and head to Mom’s or home to keep working. (I’ve found that a change of scenery really helps when working on tough problems that are frustrating me)
    • Work until about 5:30 pm when I pick up Hero from the Boys and Girls club
    • Figure out dinner and then program a few more hours starting at 7-8 pm

     

    6565

    Interestingly, I have no clue how many hours a week that I work, and these times above are really just guesses. I don’t often think much about how many hours I’m working. Instead, I set a goal(s) for the day and try to achieve that.

    Ultimately, my daily work schedule is very flexible and changes through the day to fit in my life. Note that I said that the work schedule fits in my life, instead of the opposite where people try to fit their lives into their work schedules.

    Travel

    I think that travel is the best perk of working at Automattic. As linked in my 2014 review post, here are the places that I traveled to for work.

  • jQuery.inArray() Fooled Me

    A couple of months ago, I found myself wanting to check if a value was in an array in JavaScript. Since I come from a PHP background, I was super excited to see that jQuery has an inArray() function.

    So, I popped $.inArray() into the program, did a few tests to make sure it works, and then committed it. The next day I got a bug report…

    Put an Instagram filter on it

    Turns out that I forgot an edge case. What happens when the value I’m searching for is at the front of the array?

    jQuery.inArray() Does Not Return a Boolean

    Coming from a PHP background, I expected jQuery.inArray() to return a true if the value was found in the array and a false if the value wasn’t found in the array.

    My mistake here is that I didn’t read the documentation well enough, or I would have seen that jQuery.inArray() is equivalent to using .indexOf().

    So, instead of returning true when the value is found in the array, jQuery.inArray() was returning the index within the array where the value was found. If the value is not found, -1 is returned.

    :facepalm:

    So, instead of having my conditional look something like this:

    [javascript]
    var numbers = [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ];
    if ( jQuery.inArray( 2, numbers) ) {
    // do something
    }
    [/javascript]

    I decided to use this:

    [javascript]
    var numbers = [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ];
    if ( jQuery.inArray( 2, numbers ) >= 0 ) {
    // do something
    }
    [/javascript]

    Lesson Learned

    RTFM and Slow Down…

    We all require looking at the manual at some point when we program. Sure, there’s a few choice functions you use on a day-to-day basis for which you remember the parameters, order of the parameters, etc.

    But, so much of a developer’s job is searching Whether that’s on StackOverflow or Google. 30 more seconds would’ve been all it took for me to get it right.

  • So, You Want to Learn to Program?

    Killer Apps

    An old friend of mine got in touch with me today and asked:

    Hey man… Best idea for beginning to learn programming?

    I was actually very excited when my friend reached out because, in my opinion, learning to program is something that can only enhance one’s possibility of advancement in many careers.

    But, Before You Get Started…

    I don’t doubt for a second that you could learn to program. But, that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

    Sure, in some cases it is fairly simple. For example, let’s write a program that just says “Hello World”.

    [code lang=javascript]
    console.log( "Hello World" );
    [/code]

    Now, let’s print out every number up to 1,000 that is odd in Javascript

    [code lang=javascript]
    for ( var i = 1; i < 1000; i++ ) {
    if ( i % 2 == 1 ) {
    console.log( i + ' is odd' );
    }
    }
    [/code]

    For funsies, here’s a video that shows you how to run both of these little snippets in your browser.

    [wpvideo ebTeBVUE]

    That being said, while basic programming and writing code itself is fairly simple, being a good developer is much more complex. I’ll defer to Beau Lebens on this subject and link you to his post, “Why Web Development is Complex.”

    If you’re still here and are still interested in learning to program – Hell yes! Let’s get on with it then 🙂

    Where to Get Started

    My absolute favorite place for beginner tutorials on programming, including everything from iOS and Android to web development, is Treehouse. This is a paid website, starting at $25, but is well worth it for how well organized the videos are.

    I was very lucky to get a free account for two years when Treehouse had a giveaway for students. That being said, I would gladly pay the $25 per month if I were just starting to learn.

    Team Treehouse

    Once signing up and logging in, you will be presented with many tracks that you can learn from. These tracks start you off at a very basic level and bit-by-bit teach you the many thing you need to become a beginner developer.

    Treehouse Tracks

    You want to build the next badass iOS app. Great, do the “iOS Development with Objective-C” track.

    Do you want to learn web development? Awesome. Take the “Front End Web Development” track.

    Here is an example of the quality of the interface and videos that you will get within each lesson.

    Android Development

    And Start a Damned WordPress Site

    My passion for development all started with me creating a WordPress site. Sure, I supplemented along the way with my BA in Computer Science, but nearly all of web development skills are self-taught by actually building stuff.

    So, go get a cheap hosting account. Figure out how to install WordPress. Install some plugins and a theme. Then, when you want to add something cool to your site? Figure out how to program it.

    Here’s the thing… The WordPress community is amazing. There is no shortage of tutorials, code snippets, and amazing people to help you learn to program.

  • 2014: Looking Back and Thinking Forward

    2014 was a very good year for myself and my family. To be frank, I hadn’t realized how blessed I was this year until the past few days as I paused to reflect on everything that has happened.

    That being said, I found that my successes in some areas also led to some shortfalls in other areas.

    I’d like to cover my successes and shortfalls, and how I plan to address shortfalls, in a few separate categories:

    • Career
    • Family
    • Health

    Career

    This year was huge for wins in the career category. In July of this year, I started my dream job at Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com as well as many other products/services.

    Along with the honor of working for such an impactful company, I also received a sizable increase in salary as well as many other benefits.

    As part of my work at Automattic, I have been able to travel to the following cities for work:

    Here are a few highlight photos:

    In 2014, I became a core contributor to WordPress with contributions in both 4.0 and 4.1.

    I had the honor of speaking at WordCamp Austin and WordCamp Orlando.

    While I am happy with where my career is currently at, there is always more work to be done.

    In 2015, my career plans will center around:

    • Learning and writing much more JavaScript
    • Making at least one contribution to the WordPress mobile apps
    • Speaking at at least one conference
    • Making a contribution to each major release of WordPress.org

    Family

    I’ll go ahead and break this category up for the three other humans living in my household 🙂

    Sara

    For those who don’t already know, my daughter died last year. This event alone was very sad, but unseen to many were the effects that it had on my relationship with Sara. I’d be lying if I said that there weren’t a few moments near the beginning of this year where I doubted that our relationship could last.

    But, I am happy to say that I feel we have pulled through this very well. As a matter of fact, my love and respect for Sara has grown to a level that I have not known before with any other partner.

    I believe that this respect and love for her comes from a newfound understanding that while I may like to say that I am the leader of my family, in almost all ways, Sara is the de facto authority.

    Sara happily schedules family events, coordinates school efforts, and nags my live-in cousin when he is not performing to our standards. She does all of this while also holding down two separate jobs and going to school full time.

    Unfortunately, I feel this often leaves her overworked and under-appreciated.

    To address this, I will be taking on more of the financial burden for the forseeable future so that Sara can worry much less about money and instead focus on family and school.

    Hero

    It’s been both heartwarming and frustrating to see Hero grow so close to Sara. I feel that this is largely due to my focus on wins in the career/financial category. To address this, I plan on having more meaningful interactions with Hero. Namely, I plan on reading nighttime books with Hero more as well as more Father-Son outings.

    Jake

    My 17-year-old cousin moved in with Sara and I in late July for his senior year of High School. With a bit of support and nagging, Jake received acceptable grades for the semester, and is on his way to graduating on time. So, I guess that counts as a success so far?

    There’s been several arguments over the past 5 months between the three of us, in which I usually come down pretty hard on Jake for grades, lack of respect or motivation, etc. But, when I step back and look at the situation as well as how Jake performs, I realize that he is a damned decent kid that is just a bit rough around the edges.

    Overall, I think Sara and I have done well here. Although, I think we should possibly consider easing up at times.

    Health

    It’s no secret that my health has not been a priority in the past few years. Hell, one look at my “rotund” belly (Hero called out a parallel between my belly and Santa’s while reading a book recently) would point that out.

    While I need to lose somewhere in the neighborhood of 100-120 pounds to be at the ideal weight for my height, my doctor recently suggested that I focus on losing 25 pounds in 2015. Which should get me to 260 pounds.

    Also, related to weight, I lead a very sedentary lifestyle and need to focus on becoming more active in general. After buying a pebble recently, I believe I am going to track general activity by counting steps. I’ll aim for at least 1,000 steps per day.

  • Mercury Roaming in Rome

    One of the best perks that comes with working at Automattic is the opportunity to travel. Because every person in the company works remotely, the company pays to get us together 3-4 times a year.

    I just got home from spending a week in Rome with my teammates, which include: Beau Lebens, Jennifer Dodd, Allen Snook, Kevin Conboy, and Oguz Kocer.

    This was my first team meetup, so I wasn’t sure to expect. But, after everything was said and done, I was impressed with how much closer I felt to my teammates.

    (more…)

  • Night Lights in Rome

    The lights that are displayed throughout various parts of Rome have been one of my favorite parts of roaming at night.

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    ????

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  • Walking by Palazzo Montecitorio

    I was interested by the color of the buildings as we walked back, so I took a picture as Allen and Oguz walked ahead.

    ??

  • Brilliant Parking in Rome

    Besides the cobble streets, one of the things about Rome that stands out most to me most is how intermingled passengers and vehicles are in Rome.

    So much so that this car was parked with only one tire on the street, and 3 on the sidewalk.

    ??

  • GPL in Rome

    Walking back to our Rome accommodations today, we came across a “GPL” car.

    ??

  • WordCamp Orlando 2014

    Last weekend, I attended and spoke at WordCamp Orlando and brought along Hieu Tran.

    The delivery of my presentation wasn’t stellar and ended up only lasting about 15-20 minutes…

    But, with 15+ minutes of questions and some love on Twitter, I feel that the topic was definitely of interest to the WordPress users in the audience.

    Here are a few tweets I received.

    https://twitter.com/EverythingSwan/status/540946871741861889

    For those interested, you can find the slides on SpeakerDeck and some code samples on Github.

    Universal Studios

    No trip to Orlando can be complete without a trip to one the theme parks that the city is famous for.

    So, on Saturday afternoon, Hieu and I decided to visit Universal Studios.

  • Users Do the Damnedest Things

    https://twitter.com/sempf/status/514473420277694465

    I had a good laugh over this tweet yesterday when I read -1 beers. After all, who the hell orders negative beers?

    But as I thought more about the tweet, it struck a chord with me.

    While the tweet was meant as a joke, it pointed out the fact that we, as developers, have to ruthlessly test our software and assume that users:

    1. Have no idea how to use our software
    2. Are intentionally trying to melt our servers

    Tech User

    Example: Uploading 1700+ Images at Once

    As a developer, I would seriously doubt that anyone would ever want to upload 1700+ images at once through a web interface.

    But, as a user, I found myself doing exactly that today after I found out that cloud drive has unlimited free photo storage for prime users!

    Amazon Cloud Drive Upload

    Takeaway

    For me, this Tweet served as a reminder that I should test my code not only how it should be used, but how it might be used.

  • Photo 101, Landmark

    For the Photo 101 Landmark theme, I decided that I would visit the Christmas display at Midwestern State University.

  • Photo 101, Connect

    I’m a day late, but here’s an image for Photo 101’s “connect” theme.

  • Photo 101: Solitude

    Today’s theme for Photo 101 was solitude. Since there’s not a lot of solitude in my life, I decided to focus on the rule-of-thirds.

    Here are some other images I took while at Hastings working on this assignment:

  • Print PHP Stack Trace

    I was having a bit of trouble tracking down exactly where a method was getting called from today.

    Usually a search in my project directory will turn up the result very quickly, but I wasn’t having luck with PHPStorm for some reason.

    So, the next best thing was to get a stack trace so that I could get the last few functions that had been run. I don’t do stack traces much in PHP, so I had to track down the code to use.

    Of the few options to use, this seemed to be the easiest to use and remember.

    $e = new Exception;

// Output the stack trace to the browser
echo $e->getTraceAsString();

// Send stack trace to error log
error_log( $e->getTraceAsString() );

    And if you’re wanting more verbose output, including the arguments that were passed to each function, try this.

    $e = new \Exception;

// Recursively print the stack trace
print_r( $e->getTrace() );

// Log the stack trace object
error_log( print_r( $e->getTrace(), true ) );

  • Photo 101: Bliss

    Today’s Photo 101 assignment was bliss.

    While one of the first things that came to mind was cuddling with my son in the early morning — about the only time that I can get him to cuddle — I decided I would do something that dealt with programming.

    Some of my favorite moments programming involve late nights, sweet tea, and the eventual solving of a problem that I have been working on for several hours.

    Coding is Bliss

  • Database Test Study Session

    I had the camera stashed away in my backpack today, so I managed to get a couple of portraits during a study session for our database test tomorrow.

  • Guy Fawkes Day

    On the way home from class today, I was able to get this picture of Guy Fawkes demonstrators at Kemp and Callfield/Midwestern in Wichita Falls, Tx.

    Guy Fawkes Day 2014