WEBVTT

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something.

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Okay.

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Hey, welcome back to Community & Code.

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I'm your host, Chris Reynolds.

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My guest today is Carrie Dills,

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who started building websites back in the

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mid-nineties before a lot of us were doing

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it.

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She took a hard left turn somewhere in

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the middle to go work for Starbucks for

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a decade.

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And when she came back around two thousand

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twelve,

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she discovered WordPress and has been one

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of its most dedicated educators ever

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since.

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We talk about what it's actually like to

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build a LinkedIn learning course from

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scratch,

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about the teaching as learning philosophy,

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which is something I could talk about for

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hours,

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and what building your own website looked

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like when stuff like Hot Scripts existed

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and SourceForge and GitHub did not.

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But a big chunk of our conversation is

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about FAIR,

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Federated and Independent Repositories,

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the Linux Foundation-backed project that

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she co-chairs that's trying to solve the

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supply chain security problem for

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WordPress plugins, themes,

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and the broader open source ecosystem.

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We get into what that actually means,

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practically,

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where FAIR is right now after a year

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that had some real ups and downs,

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and why the Type-O-Three hackathon in

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March was a genuinely exciting

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development.

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Kerry is thoughtful and honest about where

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things stand,

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including where fare still has ground to

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cover.

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Let's dive in with Kerry Dills.

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Welcome to Community & Code,

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the podcast where we talk to the human

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beings behind the commits.

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And my human being today is Kerry Dills,

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who is a longtime WordPress developer,

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freelancer, consultant, and educator.

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You've been doing like training stuff for

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quite a while.

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And also one of the co-chairs, I think,

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is your official title of the FAIR

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project.

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which is Federated and Independent

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Repositories.

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We've had a couple, I think,

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we've talked to people from FAIR before.

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We've talked about FAIR, certainly.

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But anyway, welcome to the show, Carrie.

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Tell us about yourself.

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Cool, Chris.

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Thanks for having me.

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Well,

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you did a pretty solid job on the

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professional intro there.

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Other things to note, I don't know.

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I don't know.

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I went to the movies this past weekend

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for the first time, and I don't know,

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a very long time,

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because I usually don't go to theaters

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these days.

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I don't know, post-COVID era,

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I just don't find myself going.

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So that was my big excitement.

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I went to a movie.

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I've been to the movies...

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I want to say like four times since

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COVID and, and like really,

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it wasn't like zero times before,

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like last year or something like there is

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definitely like five years before I had,

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we actually went to a movie in,

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in person.

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And then it was like weird, right?

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Like you're in the theater, like, oh,

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this is a thing that I used to

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do.

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Except I'm kind of like, wow.

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I can't pause it if I need to

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go take a bio break.

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I've got to get up and miss a

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movie if I want to go refill a

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beverage or anything.

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So I've kind of gotten spoiled, honestly,

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to just being on my couch watching movies.

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I mean, like...

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After our kids were born,

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the amount of time that it took to

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watch a movie from start to finish between

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my partner and I went from like, yeah,

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we could binge,

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we could do back-to-back movie nights,

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we could watch two movies and have a

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doubleheader, went from that to like,

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yeah,

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we'll maybe get through this movie by the

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end of the week.

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The struggle is real.

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Well,

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so one of the things I like to

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talk about on the podcast is sort of

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like what got you into,

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like what's your sort of origin story?

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What's your origin story for WordPress?

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What's your origin story for tech?

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Like what sort of led to the decisions

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that lead you to the person that you

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end up being here as a co-chair of

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this weird independent federated

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repository project thing?

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It's a slightly windy road,

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which is probably true of many people's

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careers.

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I was studying something completely

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unrelated in college,

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and I went to college literally the last

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century.

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And I took an HTML class just as

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an elective and was very intrigued and

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started.

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That was kind of my first taste of

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the web, and this was mid-nineties.

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And when I got out,

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that was the only actual skill that I

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had was building web pages.

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And so I got some,

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I found freelance work for that,

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started doing it.

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And that just kind of snowballed into a

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small career in web development and

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consultancy.

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And at that point in time, it was...

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you know, ancient technology now,

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but I've had a sideways step in my

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career.

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I've got tired of tech and thought I

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want to go open a coffee shop and

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I'll go, well,

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I don't know anything about how to

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I know how to make coffee and that's

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about it.

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I don't know anything about the business

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aspect of it.

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Uh,

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so I decided I needed some help and

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went to learn from Starbucks corporation,

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um,

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learned on their dime and ended up staying

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for about a decade, a little under that.

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And then I actually, it was, uh,

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somebody that I was working with, um,

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that told me about WordPress.

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So I started, uh,

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dabbling in that and i was sort of

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amazed at just how advanced that seemed

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compared to like rolling your own cms back

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in the day i was like oh my

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gosh all this stuff just exists out of

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the box uh so i started working with

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it and then at one point determined hey

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I can make more money doing this than

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I can slinging coffee.

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So I made the switch back to WordPress

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and or back to tech.

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And that was probably around twenty twelve

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or so.

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And then here I am.

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I've just kind of hung around so much.

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So what version of WordPress was that sort

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of like or or like era like what

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where where was WordPress at when you

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first sort of tacked on,

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like jumped on and saw that it was

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like groundbreaking compared to what you

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knew?

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I think we were somewhere in the early

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version three.

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I can't remember what point release it

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was.

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But, I mean,

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you go back and look at it now,

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and it looks like a dinosaur,

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but it looked pretty cool then.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, well,

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I asked because my first WordPress version

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was two something.

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I want to say like two point five

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or thereabouts.

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And for me,

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like it wasn't it wasn't compared to roll.

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I mean,

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I had rolled my own a little bit.

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Mostly I like found like a script that

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that like there used to be a website.

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I've mentioned this a couple of times.

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There used to be a website called Hot

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Scripts, which sounds super bad now.

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It had a little chili pepper.

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And it was just like free open source

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PHP scripts.

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And it's probably like asp.net and like,

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I don't know,

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Perl scripts probably on there.

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But really,

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it was like you could download something

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that somebody made and then put it on

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your website and use it.

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And one of the things that I found,

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a couple things I found there,

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one of the things was like some sort

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of JavaScript-y thing where,

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there would be a block in your HTML

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on the web page that you're building that

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becomes editable.

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And so there's another sort of like

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backend page thing that you can access

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through a password or whatever.

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And then somebody could just log in and

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edit the text on the page.

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But what they're actually doing is

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actually editing the HTML in that section.

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So it's kind of like a CMS lite

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sort of thing.

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So I did that for a couple projects

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that I built freelance.

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But then the other thing that I had

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done for myself was I was web blogging

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when it was called a weblog.

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Web log.

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It's a log of the things you did

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on your website.

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And when I started doing that,

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it was all HTML and I was like

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FTPing it up to my server and whatever.

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And then at some point I was like,

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okay, well, there's stuff for this now.

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So I found on Hot Scripts a blogging

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platform called Sblog,

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which was really like, it was like, yeah,

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somebody rolled their own CMS sort of

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thing.

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And similar to the origin story of

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WordPress,

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where like the maintainer kind of goes off

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and disappears for a while.

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I mean, that's a thing that like,

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we've seen it all across open source for

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forever.

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It's just a thing that happens because

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people get busy and they stop having time

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for their side projects.

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So he disappeared and there was a bunch

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of problems or bugs or weird things.

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I'm like, okay, this isn't sustainable.

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And at that point,

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I think a friend of mine from college

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had mentioned, had talked about WordPress.

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So I'm like, okay,

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I wonder if I can move my stuff

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over there.

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And then, yeah,

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so that was about the two point something

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era.

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Yeah, old internet is weird.

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And I'm sure we'll look back at what's

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currently so cool and be like, Oh yeah.

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Yeah.

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I mean, I,

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I've been thinking a lot about like,

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Like recently, well,

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especially with like a lot of people

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talking about like moving there.

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Well, okay.

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So a conversation that has come up, uh,

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I've seen a bunch of times, um, recently,

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like in literally in the last couple of

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weeks is this idea that not every site

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needs a CMS,

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like Yoast blogged about that when he

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transferred his blog over to Astro.

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I'm seeing it on like LinkedIn posts and

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whatever.

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But like, I don't know,

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you and me have been around for a

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while.

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That's not a new conversation.

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Right.

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There was a point in time when we've

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been talking for twenty years.

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Like that's that's like old.

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That's an interesting way to look at it.

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We're sort of maybe going back to a

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simpler web approach.

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Yeah, I mean,

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it's interesting to me because this is a

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conversation that's been ongoing for

00:10:43.086 --> 00:10:43.686
twenty years,

00:10:44.727 --> 00:10:46.488
but now it's got the AI spin.

00:10:46.588 --> 00:10:47.007
Like now, oh,

00:10:47.027 --> 00:10:48.968
you don't need a CMS for your website.

00:10:49.007 --> 00:10:49.108
Well,

00:10:49.128 --> 00:10:50.628
you never needed a CMS for your website.

00:10:50.768 --> 00:10:52.028
It helps with some things,

00:10:52.049 --> 00:10:53.829
but obviously that was always an option.

00:10:54.190 --> 00:10:55.910
Obviously, there are always other things.

00:10:56.050 --> 00:10:58.490
But now the thing is, well,

00:10:58.511 --> 00:10:59.710
you can have AI build it for you

00:10:59.751 --> 00:11:01.852
and then you don't need your CMS.

00:11:01.911 --> 00:11:02.171
Okay.

00:11:05.729 --> 00:11:07.451
Ooh, to the AI having it built,

00:11:07.512 --> 00:11:09.373
not ooh, to the not needing a CMS.

00:11:09.413 --> 00:11:12.397
They're not every, you know, not,

00:11:12.718 --> 00:11:14.940
not everything needs the same tool.

00:11:15.501 --> 00:11:15.781
Yes.

00:11:16.122 --> 00:11:18.184
Yeah.

00:11:18.224 --> 00:11:19.805
But yeah, so somewhere along the way,

00:11:20.566 --> 00:11:21.166
you started,

00:11:21.368 --> 00:11:24.371
you started teaching WordPress-y things.

00:11:24.411 --> 00:11:25.012
How did that happen?

00:11:26.248 --> 00:11:31.252
That was back in the early days of

00:11:32.453 --> 00:11:33.413
my entry to WordPress.

00:11:33.633 --> 00:11:36.055
I was learning WordPress off of what was

00:11:36.075 --> 00:11:40.158
then called lynda.com from an instructor

00:11:40.199 --> 00:11:41.499
named Morton Wren Hendrickson.

00:11:42.400 --> 00:11:44.821
And he was very involved in the WordPress

00:11:44.842 --> 00:11:46.302
space very on and a

00:11:47.744 --> 00:11:50.066
I kind of hate the term thought leader,

00:11:50.127 --> 00:11:51.648
but he very much is that still.

00:11:52.609 --> 00:11:53.590
And a lot of respect for him.

00:11:53.791 --> 00:11:54.311
And anyhow,

00:11:54.392 --> 00:11:56.815
was learning WordPress from him on that

00:11:56.834 --> 00:11:57.435
platform.

00:11:58.475 --> 00:12:01.018
And then had a conversation with him at

00:12:01.038 --> 00:12:02.040
a WordCamp one time.

00:12:02.079 --> 00:12:03.602
And he was like, have you ever considered?

00:12:03.622 --> 00:12:04.922
And I was like, no,

00:12:05.224 --> 00:12:06.665
but that's interesting.

00:12:08.186 --> 00:12:08.946
Uh,

00:12:08.967 --> 00:12:11.047
so I went out and did my first

00:12:11.088 --> 00:12:12.527
course, um,

00:12:12.708 --> 00:12:15.108
and kind of fell in love with it,

00:12:15.148 --> 00:12:16.469
fell in love with the process and,

00:12:16.690 --> 00:12:18.989
and determined that that had,

00:12:20.011 --> 00:12:21.511
I think there's always been an inner

00:12:21.570 --> 00:12:23.331
instructor in me or I,

00:12:23.492 --> 00:12:25.031
I love teaching others and empowering

00:12:25.092 --> 00:12:27.093
others through helping them understand the

00:12:27.132 --> 00:12:29.253
why, um, behind things,

00:12:29.312 --> 00:12:31.013
not just copy pasting and, um,

00:12:31.295 --> 00:12:35.463
Um, and that led to, uh, you know,

00:12:35.503 --> 00:12:36.725
now at this point,

00:12:36.746 --> 00:12:38.749
a decade long with LinkedIn learning.

00:12:40.874 --> 00:12:45.717
Yeah, so I also kind of a,

00:12:45.936 --> 00:12:46.777
it wasn't Morton.

00:12:48.698 --> 00:12:49.579
Morton never talked to me,

00:12:50.378 --> 00:12:55.381
but I had started doing presentations at

00:12:55.401 --> 00:12:59.703
WordCamps and it was after one of the

00:12:59.723 --> 00:13:00.604
presentations I did,

00:13:00.643 --> 00:13:02.184
I think it was just a presentation that

00:13:02.224 --> 00:13:04.965
I did on like intro to theme development

00:13:05.006 --> 00:13:07.666
or something and

00:13:08.826 --> 00:13:10.166
someone from Pluralsight,

00:13:10.708 --> 00:13:14.007
which is an online developer training

00:13:14.407 --> 00:13:15.709
platform or was,

00:13:15.729 --> 00:13:16.748
I think it still exists now.

00:13:18.549 --> 00:13:20.749
Pluralsight is actually based or was based

00:13:20.790 --> 00:13:23.729
in Utah, a little north of me.

00:13:24.249 --> 00:13:26.771
And someone from Pluralsight happened to

00:13:26.791 --> 00:13:27.810
be at the WordCamp.

00:13:27.830 --> 00:13:29.112
I don't know if they were scouting or

00:13:29.171 --> 00:13:32.451
what, but they asked me after my talk,

00:13:32.472 --> 00:13:33.772
would you be interested in doing this

00:13:33.792 --> 00:13:34.073
thing?

00:13:34.573 --> 00:13:35.132
And I'm like,

00:13:36.354 --> 00:13:38.435
sure and the way they posed it was

00:13:38.575 --> 00:13:39.696
oh it'll basically be the same as what

00:13:39.717 --> 00:13:42.440
you're doing this is when the narrator

00:13:42.479 --> 00:13:44.360
comes over and does the voiceovers it was

00:13:44.460 --> 00:13:46.802
it was not the same it was similar

00:13:47.684 --> 00:13:49.825
but building a like a four to eight

00:13:49.865 --> 00:13:53.089
hour like course is very different than

00:13:53.408 --> 00:13:56.012
designing a like a thirty minute talk on

00:13:56.031 --> 00:13:56.932
a subject sure

00:13:59.525 --> 00:14:00.805
It'll be easy, they said.

00:14:00.886 --> 00:14:01.686
Oh, yeah, it'll be easy.

00:14:01.706 --> 00:14:02.828
It'll be fun, yeah.

00:14:02.887 --> 00:14:04.871
And that was very early days in

00:14:04.930 --> 00:14:06.132
Pluralsight's history, too.

00:14:07.213 --> 00:14:09.935
So their history was that they originally

00:14:09.975 --> 00:14:13.259
were on-site training for really deep

00:14:13.379 --> 00:14:15.642
Microsoft-specific stuff.

00:14:15.742 --> 00:14:17.403
And then they realized at some point that

00:14:17.424 --> 00:14:17.905
they could...

00:14:19.126 --> 00:14:20.767
do this online and not have to send

00:14:20.807 --> 00:14:22.249
people to offices.

00:14:23.271 --> 00:14:24.792
And then they started expanding their

00:14:25.012 --> 00:14:25.773
course catalog.

00:14:25.794 --> 00:14:26.874
And it was when they were expanding their

00:14:26.915 --> 00:14:28.316
course catalog that I came in.

00:14:28.336 --> 00:14:29.878
So really like Greenfield,

00:14:29.898 --> 00:14:30.940
they had nothing.

00:14:31.339 --> 00:14:33.181
They had very little content that wasn't

00:14:33.281 --> 00:14:35.064
about Microsoft something.

00:14:35.624 --> 00:14:36.766
Um, so it was like,

00:14:36.805 --> 00:14:37.926
we don't really know what we want you

00:14:37.945 --> 00:14:38.305
to do.

00:14:38.565 --> 00:14:41.068
And also like you're doing all of this

00:14:41.088 --> 00:14:41.427
stuff.

00:14:41.488 --> 00:14:43.028
So we're going to give you like,

00:14:43.089 --> 00:14:45.050
you will reimburse you for like Camtasia

00:14:45.089 --> 00:14:46.469
and we'll reimburse you for a mic.

00:14:46.550 --> 00:14:48.850
And, uh, and you know,

00:14:48.891 --> 00:14:50.652
we'll have a couple of people that'll like

00:14:50.691 --> 00:14:51.652
help you through, uh,

00:14:52.193 --> 00:14:53.513
like a little bit and we can guide,

00:14:53.533 --> 00:14:55.434
but like you're doing all the editing and

00:14:55.575 --> 00:14:57.935
all the preparation, all the everything.

00:14:58.516 --> 00:14:58.636
Uh,

00:14:58.695 --> 00:14:59.796
and we're just going to review it at

00:14:59.836 --> 00:15:00.217
the end.

00:15:00.497 --> 00:15:02.838
Um, yeah, that was, that was, it's not,

00:15:02.858 --> 00:15:04.179
that's not how it is anymore.

00:15:04.238 --> 00:15:04.679
I don't think.

00:15:05.158 --> 00:15:07.060
OK, because that's a big ask,

00:15:07.079 --> 00:15:08.219
because not only do you have to be

00:15:08.239 --> 00:15:10.460
a subject matter expert and whatever it is

00:15:10.480 --> 00:15:12.262
that you're teaching, but that's oh,

00:15:12.281 --> 00:15:12.722
by the way,

00:15:12.742 --> 00:15:14.583
you also have to understand production.

00:15:14.723 --> 00:15:16.922
You have to understand editing and this

00:15:16.963 --> 00:15:18.863
particular software suite and a whole

00:15:18.883 --> 00:15:19.984
audio engineer.

00:15:20.104 --> 00:15:20.604
Yep.

00:15:20.685 --> 00:15:20.905
Right.

00:15:21.425 --> 00:15:22.325
All the things.

00:15:22.545 --> 00:15:23.006
Yep.

00:15:23.046 --> 00:15:23.526
Yeah.

00:15:23.585 --> 00:15:23.766
Yeah.

00:15:23.786 --> 00:15:26.786
It's very, very bootstrappy back then.

00:15:26.826 --> 00:15:27.586
Very bootstrappy.

00:15:27.627 --> 00:15:28.828
Yeah.

00:15:29.608 --> 00:15:32.628
Yeah, so I mean,

00:15:32.669 --> 00:15:33.669
a friend of the show,

00:15:33.689 --> 00:15:36.089
a friend of mine, Gary Kovar,

00:15:36.189 --> 00:15:37.508
I don't actually think I've had him on

00:15:37.569 --> 00:15:40.310
here yet, but he's also,

00:15:40.389 --> 00:15:42.670
he started doing LinkedIn learning classes

00:15:42.690 --> 00:15:43.410
a couple years ago,

00:15:43.469 --> 00:15:44.970
so I know a little bit about his

00:15:45.011 --> 00:15:45.871
process from that.

00:15:45.950 --> 00:15:48.590
What was the process like for you when

00:15:48.631 --> 00:15:51.852
you first started doing Lynda, right?

00:15:51.911 --> 00:15:53.791
It was Lynda before his LinkedIn purchase,

00:15:53.811 --> 00:15:54.331
yeah, yeah.

00:15:55.652 --> 00:15:57.713
It's, I'm trying to remember how the,

00:15:57.753 --> 00:15:57.892
like,

00:15:59.203 --> 00:16:00.785
those first few courses went.

00:16:01.305 --> 00:16:03.686
They've evolved a lot over the years.

00:16:03.747 --> 00:16:05.809
It sounds a lot more structured than what

00:16:05.829 --> 00:16:08.070
you're describing at Pluralsight back in

00:16:08.090 --> 00:16:08.431
the day.

00:16:09.993 --> 00:16:12.636
But it would start with just a pitch

00:16:12.676 --> 00:16:13.235
for the course.

00:16:13.276 --> 00:16:13.936
What's the course?

00:16:13.977 --> 00:16:15.057
Who's the target audience?

00:16:15.799 --> 00:16:16.920
What's the learning objective?

00:16:16.940 --> 00:16:17.560
That sort of thing.

00:16:18.801 --> 00:16:21.544
And then a table of contents that would

00:16:21.704 --> 00:16:23.046
support that course.

00:16:24.371 --> 00:16:25.612
that learning outcome.

00:16:26.873 --> 00:16:30.055
Um, and over the years, it's,

00:16:30.474 --> 00:16:32.735
it's kind of stuck to that core format,

00:16:32.756 --> 00:16:33.977
but with a few more,

00:16:34.316 --> 00:16:36.498
they want you to, um,

00:16:36.559 --> 00:16:38.160
it's more platform specific, I think.

00:16:38.180 --> 00:16:38.520
So like,

00:16:38.839 --> 00:16:40.220
what are other classes that might be a

00:16:40.281 --> 00:16:41.242
prerequisite to this?

00:16:41.281 --> 00:16:42.963
What are other classes that you might

00:16:43.003 --> 00:16:44.282
recommend to your learning paths?

00:16:44.302 --> 00:16:45.123
Yeah, exactly.

00:16:45.363 --> 00:16:45.824
Exactly.

00:16:46.604 --> 00:16:48.185
Um, so it's,

00:16:49.884 --> 00:16:52.166
you're kind of left to your own when

00:16:52.206 --> 00:16:54.648
it comes to actually writing the content,

00:16:54.669 --> 00:16:56.850
creating the content, all of that,

00:16:56.891 --> 00:16:58.812
but they give you a good structure around

00:16:58.892 --> 00:17:01.315
it to help you think about, um,

00:17:03.036 --> 00:17:04.797
how a learner might progress through

00:17:04.838 --> 00:17:07.280
pieces of information to get to, you know,

00:17:07.320 --> 00:17:09.261
from point A to point B.

00:17:10.642 --> 00:17:11.703
So I've appreciated that.

00:17:11.743 --> 00:17:12.783
It's taught me a lot about how to

00:17:13.143 --> 00:17:13.544
deliver,

00:17:13.964 --> 00:17:15.545
even in like giving WordCamp talks,

00:17:15.565 --> 00:17:18.487
like how to deliver information in a

00:17:18.566 --> 00:17:19.348
coherent way.

00:17:21.669 --> 00:17:24.470
Um, and then they have, uh,

00:17:24.631 --> 00:17:26.152
full post-production support.

00:17:26.211 --> 00:17:28.913
So it's literally drop the mic and,

00:17:29.294 --> 00:17:31.435
and fly home and it's,

00:17:31.636 --> 00:17:32.656
it's in their hands.

00:17:32.676 --> 00:17:36.118
And I don't know, like Pluralsight,

00:17:36.157 --> 00:17:40.180
did they do any marketing for you or

00:17:40.220 --> 00:17:41.561
for your course or was it?

00:17:42.874 --> 00:17:46.117
there uh there was a period of time

00:17:46.316 --> 00:17:48.257
when you could have been featured in an

00:17:48.458 --> 00:17:55.041
email a newsletter okay um and and then

00:17:55.181 --> 00:17:56.743
and then after that uh i think they

00:17:56.762 --> 00:17:58.483
had so much content that that that the

00:17:58.544 --> 00:18:00.204
chances of you being featured in the

00:18:00.224 --> 00:18:02.365
newsletter went down um no there was never

00:18:02.406 --> 00:18:05.687
really any any marketing um officially and

00:18:05.828 --> 00:18:09.469
one of the things like so there were

00:18:09.709 --> 00:18:09.810
um uh

00:18:13.387 --> 00:18:14.368
they had author summits,

00:18:14.408 --> 00:18:15.990
so they call them authors,

00:18:16.031 --> 00:18:16.792
BrailleSite authors.

00:18:17.454 --> 00:18:19.215
I don't know what LinkedIn calls you.

00:18:20.224 --> 00:18:23.566
instructors instructors okay that's good

00:18:23.586 --> 00:18:25.887
yeah uh yeah plural site authors uh so

00:18:25.907 --> 00:18:28.050
there's author summits um that they had

00:18:28.150 --> 00:18:30.392
for a number of years and that was

00:18:31.473 --> 00:18:32.834
i went to one of the early ones

00:18:32.873 --> 00:18:34.675
i might have been the first one maybe

00:18:34.695 --> 00:18:37.096
the second one um because it was actually

00:18:37.217 --> 00:18:39.219
in their office and then they got big

00:18:39.258 --> 00:18:40.539
enough that they couldn't hold it in the

00:18:40.600 --> 00:18:43.921
office anymore um but uh that was really

00:18:43.961 --> 00:18:45.222
good because you got to talk to other

00:18:45.242 --> 00:18:46.884
people and figure out what other people

00:18:46.904 --> 00:18:48.865
were doing um which there really wasn't

00:18:48.905 --> 00:18:49.586
any way to like

00:18:50.386 --> 00:18:51.648
to get that sort of a feedback from

00:18:51.728 --> 00:18:52.808
other people that are doing the same

00:18:52.828 --> 00:18:53.248
thing, right?

00:18:53.588 --> 00:18:54.008
Yeah.

00:18:54.209 --> 00:18:55.891
And one of the things that I learned

00:18:55.930 --> 00:18:56.651
pretty quickly is, like,

00:18:56.671 --> 00:18:58.191
there are a couple of people that were

00:18:58.211 --> 00:18:59.593
doing Pluralsight courses that were, like,

00:18:59.773 --> 00:19:00.593
well-known,

00:19:00.632 --> 00:19:04.675
particularly in the Microsoft educational

00:19:05.115 --> 00:19:06.296
whatever space.

00:19:06.437 --> 00:19:07.036
And so, like,

00:19:07.197 --> 00:19:09.778
their names specifically would just carry

00:19:09.818 --> 00:19:10.078
weight.

00:19:10.558 --> 00:19:12.299
And obviously the ones that had names that

00:19:12.360 --> 00:19:13.680
had an established following, whatever,

00:19:13.720 --> 00:19:15.421
they obviously did really, really well.

00:19:16.803 --> 00:19:18.784
and those are obviously also the courses

00:19:18.804 --> 00:19:20.466
that tended to get more viewers and

00:19:20.506 --> 00:19:22.727
whatever and so like there is there is

00:19:22.767 --> 00:19:24.627
like a natural gravity that kind of came

00:19:24.668 --> 00:19:27.390
and so like if you came in with

00:19:27.430 --> 00:19:30.231
your own sort of like personal brand or

00:19:30.271 --> 00:19:32.313
whatever then maybe you could use that and

00:19:32.334 --> 00:19:34.114
that could sort of and then for everyone

00:19:34.154 --> 00:19:35.215
else it was like okay how do i

00:19:35.255 --> 00:19:37.836
build that personal brand um so that

00:19:37.876 --> 00:19:39.398
becomes a whole thing that i had to

00:19:39.418 --> 00:19:40.679
think about in like the

00:19:46.982 --> 00:19:47.324
Yeah,

00:19:47.484 --> 00:19:50.846
so you were free to market your own

00:19:50.886 --> 00:19:51.708
stuff, but yeah,

00:19:51.908 --> 00:19:53.309
there was not really a whole lot of

00:19:53.350 --> 00:19:58.194
official push from them, which was, yeah,

00:19:58.275 --> 00:19:58.975
everything is hard.

00:19:59.115 --> 00:20:01.817
Everything is hard.

00:20:01.898 --> 00:20:03.100
That part sounds about the same.

00:20:04.800 --> 00:20:05.201
Yeah.

00:20:06.355 --> 00:20:09.140
yeah so what about um i'm interested

00:20:09.160 --> 00:20:11.863
because so you're talking about um how you

00:20:11.882 --> 00:20:13.986
were you were learning from morton uh then

00:20:14.026 --> 00:20:15.188
he comes in and kind of asks you

00:20:15.208 --> 00:20:16.008
or have you thought about doing this

00:20:16.028 --> 00:20:18.010
yourself so there's at least one other

00:20:18.050 --> 00:20:20.314
person even just within the platform who's

00:20:20.373 --> 00:20:22.717
doing the thing that you're doing um

00:20:23.438 --> 00:20:26.101
Were you specifically thinking about or

00:20:26.180 --> 00:20:29.325
looking at topics that you could do that

00:20:29.384 --> 00:20:32.548
would be sort of like, I don't know,

00:20:32.568 --> 00:20:32.689
like,

00:20:32.729 --> 00:20:34.770
how are you distinguishing the things that

00:20:34.790 --> 00:20:36.113
you are working on that would make it

00:20:36.452 --> 00:20:38.174
distinct and different from what he was

00:20:38.696 --> 00:20:39.616
teaching and talking about?

00:20:39.957 --> 00:20:40.918
Yeah, that makes sense.

00:20:41.158 --> 00:20:44.119
And I think it's not that you won't

00:20:44.139 --> 00:20:47.040
find overlapping content in the LinkedIn

00:20:47.061 --> 00:20:47.740
Learning Library.

00:20:47.760 --> 00:20:48.582
You certainly will.

00:20:48.642 --> 00:20:51.682
But I think they're very intentional about

00:20:51.984 --> 00:20:55.726
course topics and trying to not have...

00:20:56.706 --> 00:20:58.027
things that are competing.

00:20:58.046 --> 00:20:59.408
Yeah.

00:20:59.448 --> 00:21:00.047
For example.

00:21:01.048 --> 00:21:01.650
So when,

00:21:01.670 --> 00:21:04.872
at the time I started the Genesis

00:21:04.911 --> 00:21:06.373
framework was my jam.

00:21:07.132 --> 00:21:09.434
And so I kicked it off just by

00:21:09.455 --> 00:21:10.996
doing a couple of Genesis courses.

00:21:12.336 --> 00:21:14.577
And then from there it sort of rolled

00:21:14.638 --> 00:21:15.619
off into other things.

00:21:15.679 --> 00:21:16.660
Morton was stepping,

00:21:18.361 --> 00:21:20.682
doing less WordPress content and starting

00:21:21.023 --> 00:21:22.504
in on other types of content and

00:21:22.643 --> 00:21:24.065
Uh, and so it,

00:21:24.084 --> 00:21:25.205
it left kind of a,

00:21:25.885 --> 00:21:28.747
a nice hole that I could fill, um,

00:21:28.846 --> 00:21:30.709
for teaching WordPress related things.

00:21:30.748 --> 00:21:32.670
And then I eventually spun off and started

00:21:32.729 --> 00:21:35.230
doing not just WordPress specific,

00:21:35.270 --> 00:21:36.592
but more front endy things.

00:21:36.931 --> 00:21:38.793
Um,

00:21:38.873 --> 00:21:40.193
I don't know if that totally answers your

00:21:40.234 --> 00:21:40.534
question.

00:21:40.554 --> 00:21:43.114
No, it, it, it, I mean, I, I,

00:21:43.436 --> 00:21:44.957
I always think about that because like

00:21:45.697 --> 00:21:48.939
when I started, uh, at Pluralsight, like.

00:21:50.132 --> 00:21:53.535
I could say anything about WordPress.

00:21:53.594 --> 00:21:55.334
Literally, there was zero.

00:21:55.374 --> 00:21:56.936
I was competing with no one.

00:21:57.395 --> 00:22:00.577
That space was totally open.

00:22:01.097 --> 00:22:02.498
Then I had to figure out and narrow

00:22:02.538 --> 00:22:03.098
down, okay,

00:22:03.258 --> 00:22:05.019
how do I figure out what I want

00:22:05.039 --> 00:22:05.959
to talk about?

00:22:06.019 --> 00:22:07.680
Obviously, the first thing that I did was

00:22:08.321 --> 00:22:10.261
essentially an extension of the talk that

00:22:10.322 --> 00:22:12.182
I gave that got me in the door

00:22:12.523 --> 00:22:14.223
which is like theme development and so I

00:22:14.363 --> 00:22:16.565
okay so now I have that now uh

00:22:16.604 --> 00:22:18.986
so now what's what's next and so what

00:22:19.026 --> 00:22:21.248
I ended up doing um which ended up

00:22:21.267 --> 00:22:23.929
being pretty uh pretty helpful is like I

00:22:23.949 --> 00:22:26.789
like okay well I can buy Brad Williams's

00:22:26.830 --> 00:22:27.190
books

00:22:28.250 --> 00:22:30.052
And I can read those books and I

00:22:30.072 --> 00:22:31.452
could be like, okay, this chapter,

00:22:31.472 --> 00:22:32.713
I'm going to turn into a class.

00:22:32.754 --> 00:22:33.955
And then, and then I kind of,

00:22:34.055 --> 00:22:35.094
I kind of, so I was,

00:22:35.275 --> 00:22:37.076
I was learning as I was going,

00:22:37.396 --> 00:22:38.998
which is actually a really good way to

00:22:39.057 --> 00:22:39.718
learn stuff.

00:22:40.818 --> 00:22:41.498
Absolutely.

00:22:41.699 --> 00:22:42.160
Because,

00:22:42.559 --> 00:22:45.941
and just learning things from like a video

00:22:47.363 --> 00:22:50.344
course that you find on Pluralsight or

00:22:50.384 --> 00:22:51.545
LinkedIn learning or wherever,

00:22:52.046 --> 00:22:53.907
isn't always the best way of learning

00:22:53.947 --> 00:22:54.346
things.

00:22:54.427 --> 00:22:56.347
Like it's like, there's,

00:22:56.367 --> 00:22:57.449
there's all sorts of like,

00:22:57.929 --> 00:22:59.650
I don't know, studies, discussions,

00:22:59.789 --> 00:23:01.709
conversations around like the best way of

00:23:01.749 --> 00:23:01.950
learning.

00:23:01.990 --> 00:23:03.930
But like it's like you hear the thing

00:23:04.371 --> 00:23:05.572
and then you read the thing and then

00:23:05.592 --> 00:23:06.771
you do the thing and then it's like

00:23:06.832 --> 00:23:07.672
locked in your body.

00:23:07.712 --> 00:23:07.932
Right.

00:23:07.992 --> 00:23:08.273
Yeah.

00:23:08.293 --> 00:23:09.373
So like for me, it was like, OK,

00:23:09.392 --> 00:23:10.473
I was reading the thing in the book

00:23:10.893 --> 00:23:12.314
and then and then also like teaching it

00:23:12.334 --> 00:23:13.594
to someone else is also a way to

00:23:13.634 --> 00:23:14.654
like lock in the learning.

00:23:14.694 --> 00:23:14.914
Right.

00:23:14.934 --> 00:23:17.296
So like for me doing like doing an

00:23:17.375 --> 00:23:19.657
internationalization course,

00:23:19.677 --> 00:23:21.198
like I read a bunch of autos posts

00:23:21.277 --> 00:23:23.879
and I I read some other stuff and

00:23:23.919 --> 00:23:24.758
then I, you know,

00:23:25.192 --> 00:23:25.813
did the course.

00:23:25.853 --> 00:23:26.472
And now it's like,

00:23:26.514 --> 00:23:28.373
that's burned into my brain.

00:23:28.453 --> 00:23:30.614
Like I'm never going to forget that stuff.

00:23:31.976 --> 00:23:32.236
Yeah.

00:23:32.355 --> 00:23:34.476
I think you're so right because it's one

00:23:34.496 --> 00:23:36.316
thing to conceptually understand something

00:23:36.356 --> 00:23:38.178
in your head or even be able to

00:23:38.537 --> 00:23:38.898
sit down,

00:23:39.037 --> 00:23:40.298
write the code and understand what you're

00:23:40.318 --> 00:23:40.639
doing,

00:23:41.258 --> 00:23:43.580
but to explain it to someone else is,

00:23:44.932 --> 00:23:47.716
it just forces your brain to work in

00:23:47.756 --> 00:23:48.516
a different way.

00:23:50.537 --> 00:23:51.538
And I think that just,

00:23:52.078 --> 00:23:54.740
like that reinforces the knowledge.

00:23:55.521 --> 00:23:57.002
And to be able to teach it,

00:23:57.023 --> 00:23:57.984
you have to understand it

00:23:59.800 --> 00:24:02.303
So I kind of learned that even before

00:24:02.323 --> 00:24:03.244
doing the courses,

00:24:03.524 --> 00:24:06.006
I was blogging and my blog started or

00:24:06.046 --> 00:24:09.688
my WordPress blog started with tutorials.

00:24:09.748 --> 00:24:10.929
It was basically, hey,

00:24:10.949 --> 00:24:11.910
I learned how to do something.

00:24:12.289 --> 00:24:13.171
Let me tell you how.

00:24:13.950 --> 00:24:15.452
And going through and step by step

00:24:15.492 --> 00:24:16.553
explaining what you do,

00:24:16.913 --> 00:24:18.054
where you're putting something,

00:24:18.133 --> 00:24:19.936
why you're putting it there and things to

00:24:19.976 --> 00:24:20.875
think about as you go.

00:24:21.697 --> 00:24:22.597
you know, do X, Y,

00:24:22.658 --> 00:24:26.700
or Z and kind of logicking through it

00:24:26.840 --> 00:24:29.681
and explaining just cemented the knowledge

00:24:29.701 --> 00:24:30.043
for me.

00:24:30.222 --> 00:24:30.962
So yeah, I think that,

00:24:31.023 --> 00:24:32.264
and everybody does have different

00:24:32.304 --> 00:24:33.465
learning, you know,

00:24:33.505 --> 00:24:35.506
styles or ways that are best for them,

00:24:35.546 --> 00:24:39.288
but I've found that that's teaching the

00:24:39.308 --> 00:24:39.649
teacher.

00:24:39.709 --> 00:24:40.709
Wait, where, how did, I don't know.

00:24:42.371 --> 00:24:43.931
Yeah, that works for me.

00:24:44.950 --> 00:24:49.073
In all of your years of doing WordPress-y

00:24:49.093 --> 00:24:49.393
stuff,

00:24:49.574 --> 00:24:53.316
have you ever ventured into foreign

00:24:53.376 --> 00:24:57.279
territories of trying out other open

00:24:57.340 --> 00:24:59.821
source CMSs or other sort of projects just

00:24:59.841 --> 00:25:01.001
to kind of get a sense?

00:25:01.021 --> 00:25:03.344
Or were you always kind of, no,

00:25:04.424 --> 00:25:05.124
I feel good here.

00:25:06.446 --> 00:25:09.588
I have primarily and largely stayed in

00:25:09.689 --> 00:25:10.369
WordPress,

00:25:10.870 --> 00:25:11.170
which

00:25:13.713 --> 00:25:14.693
In retrospect,

00:25:14.873 --> 00:25:17.434
I wish I had have been broader.

00:25:18.154 --> 00:25:20.555
And we can talk about FAIR later,

00:25:20.615 --> 00:25:24.856
but coming into FAIR has opened my eyes

00:25:24.896 --> 00:25:27.198
considerably to the larger open source

00:25:27.317 --> 00:25:27.998
ecosystem.

00:25:28.938 --> 00:25:32.680
And there's so much out there and so

00:25:32.719 --> 00:25:33.299
many things,

00:25:33.380 --> 00:25:36.121
like there's just people do different

00:25:36.141 --> 00:25:36.901
things differently.

00:25:37.061 --> 00:25:38.881
And there's the opportunity to learn from

00:25:38.940 --> 00:25:40.521
how different open source projects

00:25:41.302 --> 00:25:42.323
work, how they govern,

00:25:42.363 --> 00:25:45.084
how they do all the things.

00:25:45.524 --> 00:25:50.546
And I've been a little bit like tunnel

00:25:50.586 --> 00:25:52.448
visioned because WordPress has been my

00:25:52.507 --> 00:25:53.129
experience.

00:25:53.169 --> 00:25:57.050
So I wish I'd made an effort earlier

00:25:57.151 --> 00:25:59.292
to at least dip my toes,

00:25:59.572 --> 00:26:01.033
not necessarily to the extent of my

00:26:01.073 --> 00:26:02.132
involvement with WordPress,

00:26:02.172 --> 00:26:05.154
but just to understand how some of these

00:26:05.174 --> 00:26:06.756
other CMSs worked.

00:26:07.428 --> 00:26:07.607
Yeah.

00:26:07.668 --> 00:26:08.629
Well, let's, we can,

00:26:08.689 --> 00:26:10.630
we can segue off and off into fair.

00:26:10.709 --> 00:26:13.191
I'm, I'm interested in like how,

00:26:13.592 --> 00:26:15.933
how you first sort of got involved in,

00:26:16.054 --> 00:26:19.516
in the project.

00:26:19.635 --> 00:26:21.698
Um, well not to,

00:26:21.817 --> 00:26:23.278
I'm sure you've talked about it on the

00:26:23.298 --> 00:26:24.819
show and I don't need to rehash any,

00:26:25.039 --> 00:26:28.402
any drama, but after, um, you know,

00:26:28.441 --> 00:26:30.264
happenings in the, in the community and,

00:26:30.683 --> 00:26:31.884
um, uh,

00:26:31.924 --> 00:26:33.305
September of a couple of years ago,

00:26:35.297 --> 00:26:42.526
I was appalled and frustrated and the

00:26:42.665 --> 00:26:45.107
issues or the concerns that were raised

00:26:45.228 --> 00:26:48.131
around governance and ownership,

00:26:50.393 --> 00:26:51.955
these were not new concerns.

00:26:52.075 --> 00:26:54.877
I realized I had just been ignoring them

00:26:54.998 --> 00:26:56.580
and living in my happy la-la land.

00:26:58.800 --> 00:27:01.201
and thinking it would not impact me.

00:27:01.941 --> 00:27:03.701
And then that was just sort of a

00:27:03.842 --> 00:27:05.642
wake up call of, oh,

00:27:05.702 --> 00:27:07.182
this is not okay.

00:27:08.623 --> 00:27:11.324
And something, we need something better.

00:27:11.623 --> 00:27:16.305
And so just through conversations with

00:27:16.525 --> 00:27:17.505
like-minded folks,

00:27:18.245 --> 00:27:20.986
I started involving myself in what would

00:27:21.006 --> 00:27:23.907
eventually become the joining of several

00:27:23.927 --> 00:27:24.947
groups to become FAIR.

00:27:26.847 --> 00:27:29.330
And the whole purpose behind that was

00:27:31.790 --> 00:27:34.793
let's fix the supply chain problem of what

00:27:34.813 --> 00:27:38.875
if somebody turns WordPress.org off

00:27:39.075 --> 00:27:40.217
because we can't control that.

00:27:40.837 --> 00:27:42.018
If somebody turns it off,

00:27:43.499 --> 00:27:45.460
how are we still powering our sites and

00:27:45.500 --> 00:27:46.282
receiving updates?

00:27:47.241 --> 00:27:51.084
So that was where it started was a

00:27:51.184 --> 00:27:52.165
technical problem,

00:27:52.845 --> 00:27:54.707
but that was also very much a business

00:27:54.747 --> 00:27:55.267
problem too.

00:27:56.181 --> 00:27:56.382
Yeah.

00:27:56.441 --> 00:27:58.064
Well, and that's not even a hypothetical,

00:27:58.804 --> 00:27:58.903
uh,

00:27:58.923 --> 00:28:01.165
a hypothetical thought experiment about

00:28:01.267 --> 00:28:02.787
what, what happens if somebody turns,

00:28:03.629 --> 00:28:03.969
you're right.

00:28:04.008 --> 00:28:04.930
It happened.

00:28:05.049 --> 00:28:07.731
It very literally happened for just for a

00:28:07.771 --> 00:28:09.514
very specific, uh, audience.

00:28:10.234 --> 00:28:11.015
Um, and that is,

00:28:11.094 --> 00:28:13.457
that is sort of part of the, yeah,

00:28:13.477 --> 00:28:15.738
that's why we're doing this, uh, I think,

00:28:15.758 --> 00:28:18.081
uh, message of, of what fair is.

00:28:18.101 --> 00:28:20.123
So what is your role, uh,

00:28:20.182 --> 00:28:22.184
officially unofficially within fair now?

00:28:23.705 --> 00:28:27.111
um i am a co-chair as you mentioned

00:28:27.372 --> 00:28:30.096
and as we started so just to back

00:28:30.177 --> 00:28:31.258
up in context like

00:28:32.613 --> 00:28:35.034
This was all new territory for me,

00:28:35.995 --> 00:28:37.756
like in terms of how to set up

00:28:37.796 --> 00:28:42.998
governance and how open source body of

00:28:43.038 --> 00:28:44.059
contributors works.

00:28:44.739 --> 00:28:48.322
And I'm very grateful to the Linux

00:28:48.342 --> 00:28:50.963
Foundation who came in early on and

00:28:51.604 --> 00:28:55.425
supported FAIR and still supports FAIR for

00:28:55.466 --> 00:28:59.189
their guidance because they've seen it all

00:28:59.229 --> 00:29:00.749
and of course know what best practices

00:29:00.769 --> 00:29:01.190
look like.

00:29:01.830 --> 00:29:05.171
And so when we formed,

00:29:05.372 --> 00:29:08.073
we formed a technical steering committee,

00:29:08.172 --> 00:29:09.553
which is a common, a TSC,

00:29:09.573 --> 00:29:12.514
which is a common term across open source

00:29:12.754 --> 00:29:13.374
communities.

00:29:13.914 --> 00:29:15.275
And that was just a body of people

00:29:15.315 --> 00:29:17.055
that were contributing to the project.

00:29:17.615 --> 00:29:19.056
And then within that,

00:29:19.096 --> 00:29:21.138
you have people that have different levels

00:29:21.178 --> 00:29:21.837
of access, right?

00:29:21.857 --> 00:29:23.338
So you have people that maybe they submit

00:29:24.119 --> 00:29:26.019
a PR or whatever, they're a contributor,

00:29:26.059 --> 00:29:27.219
or they show up to a meeting,

00:29:27.259 --> 00:29:28.561
they participate in a conversation,

00:29:28.621 --> 00:29:29.321
they're contributing.

00:29:30.421 --> 00:29:31.862
And then you have a next step up,

00:29:31.921 --> 00:29:34.304
which is organizers.

00:29:34.524 --> 00:29:37.446
And those are sort of your core team,

00:29:37.466 --> 00:29:38.585
your voting members.

00:29:39.767 --> 00:29:42.087
And then somebody sits,

00:29:43.028 --> 00:29:45.469
somebody leads the helm of that,

00:29:46.311 --> 00:29:47.591
herding cats, if you will.

00:29:49.352 --> 00:29:51.152
And that is a chair.

00:29:51.413 --> 00:29:52.514
And in the case of FAIR,

00:29:52.534 --> 00:29:55.375
we opted to have three co-chairs instead

00:29:55.415 --> 00:29:56.055
of a single.

00:29:56.355 --> 00:29:56.477
And

00:29:58.077 --> 00:30:00.619
I'm really glad of that because it brings

00:30:00.939 --> 00:30:02.980
a diversity in terms of just personalities

00:30:03.020 --> 00:30:05.082
and perspectives that I think has been

00:30:05.122 --> 00:30:06.722
beneficial for the project so far.

00:30:08.644 --> 00:30:09.144
But anyhow,

00:30:09.404 --> 00:30:11.325
I was elected to serve as a co-chair,

00:30:11.586 --> 00:30:14.949
and that was actually a little over a

00:30:15.008 --> 00:30:16.110
year ago at this point.

00:30:16.130 --> 00:30:17.549
So by the time that this airs,

00:30:17.591 --> 00:30:20.411
there will probably have been a new round

00:30:20.451 --> 00:30:21.972
of elections for co-chairs.

00:30:21.992 --> 00:30:22.053
Wow.

00:30:22.074 --> 00:30:26.997
I haven't even thought about that.

00:30:28.519 --> 00:30:28.800
Wow.

00:30:29.523 --> 00:30:30.826
Yeah.

00:30:32.511 --> 00:30:34.698
Talk about like... So...

00:30:36.322 --> 00:30:37.922
Obviously,

00:30:38.642 --> 00:30:42.383
there was a lot of tension in the

00:30:42.423 --> 00:30:46.385
WordPress community following that one

00:30:46.425 --> 00:30:48.346
fateful WordCamp US.

00:30:49.187 --> 00:30:51.188
There's obviously been a lot of drama,

00:30:52.948 --> 00:30:56.850
and that's not particularly new,

00:30:56.910 --> 00:31:00.470
although a longstanding lawsuit and legal

00:31:00.510 --> 00:31:02.072
case has probably not happened,

00:31:02.132 --> 00:31:02.552
I don't think.

00:31:03.112 --> 00:31:05.172
not to the degree that it is right

00:31:05.232 --> 00:31:07.652
now, happened in WordPress's history.

00:31:07.972 --> 00:31:09.534
So that's all part of it,

00:31:09.574 --> 00:31:17.154
but what about FAIR and the operational

00:31:17.295 --> 00:31:20.835
goal of the project do you feel is

00:31:21.055 --> 00:31:24.376
worth volunteering your time and your

00:31:24.437 --> 00:31:25.036
energy towards?

00:31:26.276 --> 00:31:28.077
Oh, well, in all honesty,

00:31:28.779 --> 00:31:31.023
a lot of my time and energy was

00:31:31.063 --> 00:31:32.865
with the hope that we would find

00:31:33.146 --> 00:31:35.269
widespread adoption in the WordPress

00:31:35.289 --> 00:31:35.811
community.

00:31:36.592 --> 00:31:39.135
And at the moment, that hasn't happened.

00:31:39.536 --> 00:31:39.657
And

00:31:41.075 --> 00:31:42.917
Maybe it could still materialize.

00:31:42.957 --> 00:31:43.396
I don't know.

00:31:45.779 --> 00:31:49.382
I'm glad that FAIR was built in a

00:31:49.402 --> 00:31:52.286
way to be agnostic and usable by other

00:31:52.365 --> 00:31:54.287
CMS communities or really anybody

00:31:54.388 --> 00:31:56.109
ultimately that needs package management.

00:31:56.650 --> 00:31:59.333
But zooming, so that's specific,

00:31:59.373 --> 00:32:00.933
but zooming outside of that a little bit,

00:32:01.113 --> 00:32:05.838
I love the idea of

00:32:07.476 --> 00:32:07.575
Okay,

00:32:07.595 --> 00:32:08.437
I'm going to go back and give an

00:32:08.477 --> 00:32:08.856
example.

00:32:09.816 --> 00:32:12.399
You're in your WordPress admin.

00:32:12.419 --> 00:32:14.640
You inherit a site and it's running.

00:32:15.641 --> 00:32:18.803
Fifty plugins and thirty four of them are

00:32:18.882 --> 00:32:22.565
out of date and.

00:32:22.584 --> 00:32:24.706
Short of just yellowing it and hitting the

00:32:24.746 --> 00:32:28.027
update button or the update all or even

00:32:28.087 --> 00:32:30.008
going through, you know,

00:32:30.048 --> 00:32:31.430
some sort of a mechanism where you're,

00:32:33.631 --> 00:32:33.832
you know,

00:32:33.911 --> 00:32:35.452
testing for regressions and all that,

00:32:35.732 --> 00:32:35.912
it's

00:32:37.101 --> 00:32:38.242
you're a little bit blind.

00:32:38.402 --> 00:32:39.825
All you know is there's an update

00:32:39.844 --> 00:32:41.908
available from a source.

00:32:42.808 --> 00:32:45.994
And so back to your question and fair,

00:32:47.876 --> 00:32:51.161
the whole idea of getting trust signals

00:32:51.181 --> 00:32:51.922
for a package

00:32:52.863 --> 00:32:57.164
And verifying that a package is who it's

00:32:57.184 --> 00:32:58.065
supposed to be from,

00:32:58.164 --> 00:32:59.765
coming from the destination it's supposed

00:32:59.785 --> 00:33:00.365
to be from,

00:33:01.006 --> 00:33:04.085
is verified in terms of there are no

00:33:04.145 --> 00:33:04.565
security,

00:33:04.665 --> 00:33:07.227
active security vulnerabilities that are

00:33:07.267 --> 00:33:07.626
known.

00:33:09.207 --> 00:33:11.668
Just the level of confidence I feel like

00:33:11.688 --> 00:33:16.848
that brings as someone managing a site is

00:33:17.189 --> 00:33:17.649
huge.

00:33:19.266 --> 00:33:20.548
And, you know,

00:33:20.930 --> 00:33:23.154
FAIR gives the ability to do something

00:33:23.194 --> 00:33:26.462
that currently just doesn't exist for

00:33:26.502 --> 00:33:27.946
comparing it to WordPress plugins.

00:33:29.169 --> 00:33:30.009
Yeah, well,

00:33:30.029 --> 00:33:31.911
what's interesting about that point in

00:33:31.970 --> 00:33:34.912
particular is that as we are recording

00:33:34.952 --> 00:33:35.313
this,

00:33:35.613 --> 00:33:38.315
Cloudflare just announced their MDash,

00:33:39.175 --> 00:33:42.778
which is their reimagining but actually

00:33:42.859 --> 00:33:47.661
sort of quasi-fork of WordPress that runs

00:33:47.721 --> 00:33:49.744
on Astro and lives in the cloud using

00:33:49.824 --> 00:33:50.944
service workers and things.

00:33:51.065 --> 00:33:52.605
But one of their fundamental arguments of,

00:33:53.165 --> 00:33:55.547
of how and why they built the architecture

00:33:55.567 --> 00:33:57.949
the way that they did was this idea

00:33:58.169 --> 00:34:01.331
of the plugin ecosystem in WordPress.

00:34:02.092 --> 00:34:05.172
I think broken is probably maybe too

00:34:05.252 --> 00:34:06.054
strong of a word,

00:34:06.094 --> 00:34:06.453
but is

00:34:08.488 --> 00:34:11.773
impaired is potentially problematic when

00:34:11.873 --> 00:34:14.977
you can have thirty four plugins that are

00:34:15.076 --> 00:34:15.677
out of date.

00:34:16.017 --> 00:34:17.819
Many of those maybe have security

00:34:17.880 --> 00:34:18.480
vulnerabilities.

00:34:18.540 --> 00:34:20.523
Maybe of those many of those might already

00:34:20.543 --> 00:34:22.525
be exposed or have already been infected

00:34:22.584 --> 00:34:23.667
by these vulnerabilities.

00:34:25.146 --> 00:34:27.087
and having files written to your file

00:34:27.107 --> 00:34:27.488
system.

00:34:27.968 --> 00:34:30.688
And the whole premise with the way that

00:34:30.708 --> 00:34:33.389
they built the plugin architecture in

00:34:33.588 --> 00:34:36.769
M-Dash was these things are going to live

00:34:36.789 --> 00:34:39.350
in isolation away from your code base or

00:34:39.390 --> 00:34:40.190
away from the rest of it.

00:34:40.209 --> 00:34:42.430
So you can't do that thing because they're

00:34:42.450 --> 00:34:44.131
identifying all of those vulnerabilities.

00:34:44.151 --> 00:34:45.832
They're identifying all the CVEs that

00:34:45.911 --> 00:34:48.872
every year that WordPress mostly comes out

00:34:48.931 --> 00:34:50.853
of plugins and outdated plugins.

00:34:51.392 --> 00:34:52.073
And you can, you know,

00:34:52.593 --> 00:34:54.895
Use patch stack you can use word fence,

00:34:54.915 --> 00:34:57.400
you can use things that like inform and

00:34:57.440 --> 00:34:58.941
tell you to update your stuff and you

00:34:58.981 --> 00:35:00.785
can have automatic updates and whatever,

00:35:00.864 --> 00:35:02.787
but like that doesn't solve the problem

00:35:02.827 --> 00:35:04.088
across the board there's always going to

00:35:04.110 --> 00:35:04.229
be.

00:35:04.831 --> 00:35:07.553
that sort of potential for security.

00:35:07.632 --> 00:35:09.794
And then also like going back to the

00:35:09.834 --> 00:35:10.613
original premise,

00:35:10.973 --> 00:35:15.957
like if a bad actor was working from

00:35:16.056 --> 00:35:17.097
within the system,

00:35:17.277 --> 00:35:18.798
which is not an impossible thing,

00:35:18.979 --> 00:35:20.959
from inside wordpress.org or somehow

00:35:21.039 --> 00:35:22.940
managed a way to circumvent something to

00:35:22.980 --> 00:35:23.822
get their code out there.

00:35:24.362 --> 00:35:27.882
Supply chain security is known outside of

00:35:27.922 --> 00:35:28.482
WordPress.

00:35:29.004 --> 00:35:29.284
Right.

00:35:29.784 --> 00:35:30.744
It's already, like,

00:35:30.784 --> 00:35:32.285
there's supply chain security issues in

00:35:32.404 --> 00:35:33.505
NPM all the time.

00:35:34.404 --> 00:35:34.805
So, like,

00:35:35.305 --> 00:35:37.927
having something where you can track and

00:35:37.987 --> 00:35:39.967
trace, you know,

00:35:41.207 --> 00:35:43.509
verify where a package is coming from

00:35:43.549 --> 00:35:44.328
makes a lot of sense.

00:35:45.649 --> 00:35:45.928
Yeah,

00:35:46.029 --> 00:35:49.951
I briefly read about the MDash this

00:35:49.991 --> 00:35:50.330
morning,

00:35:50.370 --> 00:35:52.692
and I'm very curious to take that for

00:35:52.732 --> 00:35:53.051
a spin.

00:35:54.036 --> 00:35:54.977
Yeah.

00:35:54.997 --> 00:35:58.721
I'm interested to see how that works and

00:35:58.761 --> 00:35:59.620
where that goes.

00:36:00.602 --> 00:36:02.863
It's interesting that it's coming from

00:36:03.042 --> 00:36:04.524
someone like Cloudflare,

00:36:04.924 --> 00:36:09.007
which I know lots of us in the

00:36:09.027 --> 00:36:10.609
WordPress ecosystem know Cloudflare.

00:36:10.669 --> 00:36:12.410
Lots of us probably use Cloudflare,

00:36:12.450 --> 00:36:15.352
but it's not like they're an established

00:36:15.392 --> 00:36:17.913
player in our community

00:36:19.634 --> 00:36:21.694
I think the first time I met anyone

00:36:21.734 --> 00:36:25.035
from Cloudflare is I went to Badcamp,

00:36:25.056 --> 00:36:26.417
which is Bay Area Drupal camp,

00:36:26.937 --> 00:36:30.897
this last year in October, I think.

00:36:30.977 --> 00:36:32.198
And they had a little table.

00:36:32.357 --> 00:36:33.698
They had two guys from Cloudflare.

00:36:33.718 --> 00:36:35.038
And that was the first time I'd ever

00:36:35.118 --> 00:36:36.480
seen them anywhere.

00:36:36.700 --> 00:36:38.020
Like, ever.

00:36:39.881 --> 00:36:40.480
Which is really cool.

00:36:40.520 --> 00:36:41.982
I got to talk to the two guys

00:36:42.002 --> 00:36:43.401
from Cloudflare for a minute.

00:36:44.881 --> 00:36:46.243
Well, I'm curious what their role was.

00:36:47.618 --> 00:36:49.739
uh it was like a sales guy and

00:36:49.779 --> 00:36:51.279
i think there was a developer guy but

00:36:51.299 --> 00:36:52.401
he wasn't there when i was at the

00:36:52.440 --> 00:36:55.060
table um but yeah so it was very

00:36:55.120 --> 00:36:59.263
like high level and not very technical um

00:36:59.343 --> 00:37:02.104
but um but i mean like that's also

00:37:02.484 --> 00:37:04.964
when like the thing that i was thinking

00:37:04.984 --> 00:37:06.285
about at the time back is you know

00:37:06.344 --> 00:37:08.004
again back in september october whatever

00:37:08.585 --> 00:37:09.665
um is like

00:37:10.806 --> 00:37:11.846
the bot protection stuff,

00:37:11.866 --> 00:37:13.147
which I think was something they had

00:37:13.207 --> 00:37:13.788
recently done.

00:37:13.888 --> 00:37:15.669
And that was something that since March of

00:37:15.710 --> 00:37:16.270
last year,

00:37:17.250 --> 00:37:19.852
we at Pantheon just saw an explosion of

00:37:20.752 --> 00:37:24.895
AI bot crawlers just sending tons and tons

00:37:24.915 --> 00:37:27.957
of traffic to sites and really ramping.

00:37:28.598 --> 00:37:32.801
like exponentially more traffic to these

00:37:32.841 --> 00:37:34.361
sites just from these scrapers.

00:37:35.143 --> 00:37:37.424
And then Cloudflare just like decided to

00:37:37.484 --> 00:37:38.964
build something for free that they're

00:37:38.984 --> 00:37:39.926
going to give to everyone.

00:37:40.006 --> 00:37:41.067
And so like, of course,

00:37:41.167 --> 00:37:42.547
everybody is going to sign up for them,

00:37:42.567 --> 00:37:42.727
right?

00:37:42.768 --> 00:37:43.227
Right.

00:37:44.009 --> 00:37:44.248
Yeah.

00:37:44.428 --> 00:37:45.669
So that was that was the sort of

00:37:46.029 --> 00:37:47.491
thing that I was thinking about at the

00:37:47.531 --> 00:37:47.730
time.

00:37:47.750 --> 00:37:48.290
And I was like, hey,

00:37:48.350 --> 00:37:49.531
what else you got cooking?

00:37:51.265 --> 00:37:52.265
Well, now you know.

00:37:52.285 --> 00:37:52.986
Yeah, right?

00:37:54.227 --> 00:37:54.386
Well,

00:37:54.446 --> 00:37:56.768
I was already curious to try out Astro

00:37:57.370 --> 00:37:58.830
and just kind of understand the guts of

00:37:58.850 --> 00:37:59.151
that.

00:38:00.011 --> 00:38:02.292
I've also recently installed Type-O-Three

00:38:02.332 --> 00:38:03.953
locally and I'm starting to play around

00:38:03.993 --> 00:38:04.455
with that.

00:38:05.616 --> 00:38:09.178
So I'm trying to learn from my previous

00:38:10.498 --> 00:38:13.201
single focus and branch out a little bit

00:38:13.241 --> 00:38:14.982
and be curious about other things out

00:38:15.002 --> 00:38:15.163
there.

00:38:15.741 --> 00:38:16.002
Yeah.

00:38:16.341 --> 00:38:17.843
Well, and on the typo three thing,

00:38:18.783 --> 00:38:20.285
you know, obviously,

00:38:20.464 --> 00:38:23.647
like a few months ago, Kareem, Miruchi,

00:38:23.747 --> 00:38:26.109
and Joost de Valk said that they were

00:38:26.129 --> 00:38:30.151
taking a few steps back from FAIR because

00:38:30.953 --> 00:38:33.935
they tried to get funding and they weren't

00:38:33.995 --> 00:38:34.614
able to get funding.

00:38:34.634 --> 00:38:36.196
They weren't able to get buy-in from the

00:38:36.236 --> 00:38:38.178
folks that they were trying to do.

00:38:38.297 --> 00:38:41.399
And so a lot of... There's been...

00:38:43.725 --> 00:38:44.825
I don't know, discussion,

00:38:44.924 --> 00:38:47.665
there's been maybe some wind out of the

00:38:47.707 --> 00:38:48.087
sails,

00:38:48.127 --> 00:38:50.006
but like FAIR is still going on and

00:38:50.026 --> 00:38:52.107
there is interest from Type-O-Three

00:38:52.408 --> 00:38:52.888
leadership.

00:38:52.948 --> 00:38:55.910
And so talk about like what that looks

00:38:55.930 --> 00:38:57.989
like and what sort of like the present

00:38:58.069 --> 00:39:00.931
and or future of FAIR might be,

00:39:01.111 --> 00:39:03.031
especially in that it was built to be

00:39:03.172 --> 00:39:04.993
like intended to be agnostic, right?

00:39:05.172 --> 00:39:06.192
Right, yeah.

00:39:06.794 --> 00:39:07.893
Well,

00:39:08.033 --> 00:39:11.975
so they had their hackathon in late March.

00:39:12.736 --> 00:39:14.797
And Type-O-Three and FAIR did a project

00:39:14.817 --> 00:39:15.216
together.

00:39:15.297 --> 00:39:16.277
And they came out of that with a

00:39:16.337 --> 00:39:19.698
working implementation of FAIR running on

00:39:19.759 --> 00:39:22.580
Type-O-Three to serve extensions,

00:39:22.640 --> 00:39:25.281
which is kind of akin to plug-ins.

00:39:27.462 --> 00:39:30.082
And so that's pretty cool to see.

00:39:30.203 --> 00:39:32.004
It's actually being added into

00:39:32.084 --> 00:39:33.044
Type-O-Three core

00:39:36.065 --> 00:39:37.446
like for baked in support.

00:39:38.727 --> 00:39:40.167
So I think that's a very real

00:39:40.207 --> 00:39:41.348
collaboration that's happening.

00:39:41.509 --> 00:39:42.629
I don't know how that will,

00:39:42.748 --> 00:39:46.390
I wasn't at the hackathon and there might

00:39:46.410 --> 00:39:48.272
be others like Brent or some other folks

00:39:48.292 --> 00:39:50.252
from the TSC that are better qualified to

00:39:50.632 --> 00:39:51.694
answer kind of what they think their

00:39:51.734 --> 00:39:52.814
future plans are there.

00:39:52.854 --> 00:39:54.975
But I think there's definitely opportunity

00:39:55.015 --> 00:39:56.977
for collaboration and we'll see more

00:39:57.017 --> 00:39:57.696
coming out of that.

00:39:58.690 --> 00:39:59.431
Yeah, I mean,

00:39:59.491 --> 00:40:01.453
I'm trying to get Brent on here too.

00:40:01.493 --> 00:40:02.033
But yeah,

00:40:03.114 --> 00:40:05.377
I think that even from a WordPress

00:40:05.397 --> 00:40:06.078
perspective,

00:40:07.739 --> 00:40:10.801
I feel like it's the sort of thing

00:40:10.841 --> 00:40:12.964
where competition is good, right?

00:40:13.084 --> 00:40:17.167
And when you have a platform that is

00:40:18.288 --> 00:40:19.589
built to be generic,

00:40:20.462 --> 00:40:22.145
And it's built to be generic, but yes,

00:40:22.225 --> 00:40:22.605
obviously,

00:40:22.625 --> 00:40:23.886
because we're all WordPress people,

00:40:23.926 --> 00:40:25.727
we're doing it in a WordPress context.

00:40:27.109 --> 00:40:28.529
But we built it so that anybody could

00:40:28.609 --> 00:40:28.890
use it.

00:40:29.551 --> 00:40:31.212
When somebody else is using it,

00:40:31.392 --> 00:40:32.953
that forces you to think about things that

00:40:32.993 --> 00:40:33.593
maybe you didn't,

00:40:33.774 --> 00:40:35.696
you weren't thinking about before, right?

00:40:35.756 --> 00:40:35.835
Yeah.

00:40:35.855 --> 00:40:37.236
The thing that I've been talking about

00:40:37.337 --> 00:40:38.178
for, you know,

00:40:38.257 --> 00:40:40.859
a year almost in FAIR is, like,

00:40:40.899 --> 00:40:41.721
composer support.

00:40:43.102 --> 00:40:44.803
But broadly, composer...

00:40:45.955 --> 00:40:47.815
There's some agencies that use Composer

00:40:48.116 --> 00:40:48.776
for WordPress,

00:40:48.837 --> 00:40:50.897
and there's the Roots project that has

00:40:50.917 --> 00:40:51.919
been built around Composer.

00:40:52.359 --> 00:40:55.761
But in the Drupal ecosystem,

00:40:55.821 --> 00:40:57.881
Composer is built into the platform,

00:40:57.922 --> 00:41:00.384
is built into how Drupal just functions.

00:41:00.444 --> 00:41:04.185
And WordPress has never operated with that

00:41:04.426 --> 00:41:05.946
mode of functioning.

00:41:06.888 --> 00:41:09.348
So we, as a WordPress community,

00:41:09.368 --> 00:41:10.450
have never been forced

00:41:10.810 --> 00:41:12.350
to think about Composer in any sort of

00:41:12.531 --> 00:41:14.272
real supporting sort of sense.

00:41:14.672 --> 00:41:16.455
But here we are with this project,

00:41:16.594 --> 00:41:18.116
and we've made this project open,

00:41:18.616 --> 00:41:20.256
and my understanding is Type-O-Three does

00:41:20.357 --> 00:41:20.997
use Composer,

00:41:21.277 --> 00:41:23.560
so that is forcing us to have to

00:41:23.620 --> 00:41:25.321
figure out what does that actually mean.

00:41:25.741 --> 00:41:27.863
And the answer ultimately benefits

00:41:27.902 --> 00:41:28.424
everyone, right?

00:41:29.096 --> 00:41:29.616
For sure.

00:41:29.757 --> 00:41:30.957
Yeah, as I understand it,

00:41:31.718 --> 00:41:34.000
they have a composer version and a

00:41:34.080 --> 00:41:35.821
non-composer version for people that don't

00:41:35.841 --> 00:41:37.243
want to go the composer route.

00:41:37.683 --> 00:41:40.004
I think your comment about WordPress,

00:41:41.486 --> 00:41:43.448
it's not in core,

00:41:44.288 --> 00:41:45.569
at least not at the time that we're

00:41:45.609 --> 00:41:46.589
recording this.

00:41:48.810 --> 00:41:49.011
And

00:41:50.270 --> 00:41:52.250
WordPress has been such a wide open door

00:41:52.310 --> 00:41:54.792
for anybody that wanted to come on board

00:41:54.951 --> 00:41:57.473
and use it that I think it has

00:41:57.513 --> 00:42:01.214
attracted over time a huge swath of people

00:42:01.234 --> 00:42:02.634
that are not developers.

00:42:03.895 --> 00:42:05.216
So the user base is,

00:42:07.017 --> 00:42:08.238
I'm making a guess,

00:42:08.257 --> 00:42:09.118
but I'm going to say that it's a

00:42:09.218 --> 00:42:11.259
largely non-technical user base.

00:42:11.339 --> 00:42:13.000
So they don't, like,

00:42:13.259 --> 00:42:14.781
they're never going to open up a terminal

00:42:14.861 --> 00:42:15.000
and...

00:42:16.681 --> 00:42:17.263
Or, you know,

00:42:17.303 --> 00:42:20.948
do a composer.json file or understand how

00:42:21.007 --> 00:42:22.430
or care how any of that works.

00:42:24.292 --> 00:42:25.495
But I think it is exciting,

00:42:25.654 --> 00:42:26.236
like you said,

00:42:26.256 --> 00:42:29.120
that seeing things that other projects use

00:42:29.160 --> 00:42:29.520
and how...

00:42:32.223 --> 00:42:33.544
We can adapt FAIR.

00:42:33.604 --> 00:42:36.187
And I think you will find that Composer

00:42:36.207 --> 00:42:39.890
support is coming to FAIR.

00:42:39.930 --> 00:42:42.312
Thank you for beating that drum along with

00:42:42.352 --> 00:42:42.752
some others.

00:42:43.493 --> 00:42:45.035
And that's exciting.

00:42:45.094 --> 00:42:46.475
It's just exciting.

00:42:46.495 --> 00:42:47.897
In my local development workflow,

00:42:48.098 --> 00:42:51.020
I use composerized versions of WordPress.

00:42:51.560 --> 00:42:53.622
And so it would be great to see

00:42:53.643 --> 00:42:55.444
that support extended.

00:42:56.018 --> 00:43:00.100
yeah for sure yeah it's it's funny um

00:43:00.120 --> 00:43:03.502
you're talking about um the the user base

00:43:03.542 --> 00:43:06.785
of wordpress tends to lean less technical

00:43:07.546 --> 00:43:10.928
um and it's it's funny because it's the

00:43:11.047 --> 00:43:13.430
inverse i feel like it's the inverse in

00:43:13.469 --> 00:43:15.071
the drupal community i've had i have had

00:43:15.131 --> 00:43:18.553
a several now uh drupal developers and

00:43:18.613 --> 00:43:20.495
folks from the drupal community on on this

00:43:20.555 --> 00:43:22.156
podcast uh and i've

00:43:22.716 --> 00:43:25.160
been to a couple of Drupal events and

00:43:26.502 --> 00:43:31.127
the path of where Drupal core development

00:43:31.187 --> 00:43:32.931
is going and where a lot of energy

00:43:32.971 --> 00:43:35.674
is going is actually in trying to pick

00:43:35.814 --> 00:43:38.257
up more of those non-technical users

00:43:38.317 --> 00:43:38.739
because they have,

00:43:38.759 --> 00:43:38.779
I

00:43:38.839 --> 00:43:40.379
identified, self-identified,

00:43:40.680 --> 00:43:42.560
that they're in the opposite problem,

00:43:43.460 --> 00:43:45.381
where it's very technical.

00:43:46.082 --> 00:43:47.602
In the Drupal ecosystem,

00:43:47.642 --> 00:43:49.343
there is the concept of not just

00:43:49.382 --> 00:43:49.863
developers,

00:43:49.902 --> 00:43:51.683
but also site builders that are just the

00:43:51.723 --> 00:43:53.424
people that do the middleware,

00:43:53.444 --> 00:43:55.265
the configuration and making sure the

00:43:55.605 --> 00:43:56.966
The admin works in the way that you're

00:43:56.986 --> 00:43:58.006
supposed to do because everything is like

00:43:58.026 --> 00:43:58.788
config based.

00:43:59.428 --> 00:44:00.248
Whereas in WordPress,

00:44:00.268 --> 00:44:02.450
we've never really needed that so much

00:44:02.469 --> 00:44:04.951
because the WordPress UI and everything

00:44:04.971 --> 00:44:06.533
that you can do is pretty easy to

00:44:06.654 --> 00:44:08.214
use and accessible to kind of everyone.

00:44:08.674 --> 00:44:09.855
And what's not built there,

00:44:10.216 --> 00:44:11.678
there are like hooks and tools for

00:44:11.698 --> 00:44:12.819
developers to add there.

00:44:12.879 --> 00:44:14.239
But like for a normal person,

00:44:14.819 --> 00:44:16.681
they're just going to find a plugin to

00:44:16.721 --> 00:44:17.681
do that thing, right?

00:44:17.801 --> 00:44:18.982
Right.

00:44:19.002 --> 00:44:20.564
So it's funny because like

00:44:21.486 --> 00:44:22.890
With WordPress, we have the one problem,

00:44:23.392 --> 00:44:23.772
and in Drupal,

00:44:23.792 --> 00:44:27.102
we have literally the polar opposite.

00:44:27.968 --> 00:44:29.527
The barrier to entry is too high.

00:44:30.768 --> 00:44:30.888
Yes.

00:44:30.908 --> 00:44:32.748
And that's been an argument even within

00:44:33.069 --> 00:44:36.189
discussions within the fair crowd of

00:44:37.710 --> 00:44:40.710
should there be that barrier to entry of

00:44:42.071 --> 00:44:43.931
knowing how to use Composer.

00:44:43.951 --> 00:44:47.893
And some people say, no,

00:44:47.913 --> 00:44:49.192
keep it a low barrier to entry.

00:44:49.232 --> 00:44:50.334
And other people say, well,

00:44:50.413 --> 00:44:52.473
if it's something for developers,

00:44:52.553 --> 00:44:53.674
make it developer friendly.

00:44:55.114 --> 00:44:55.335
So yeah.

00:44:56.181 --> 00:44:56.422
Yeah,

00:44:56.442 --> 00:44:58.424
I've always found the question of Composer

00:44:58.464 --> 00:44:59.986
and WordPress really interesting because

00:45:00.006 --> 00:45:00.785
on the one hand, like,

00:45:00.926 --> 00:45:02.007
so as a developer,

00:45:02.788 --> 00:45:03.989
I want to use Composer and everything

00:45:04.029 --> 00:45:06.812
because I know, and my argument,

00:45:07.093 --> 00:45:09.174
and I've said this in talks and things,

00:45:09.335 --> 00:45:14.138
is that by using Composer for WordPress,

00:45:15.109 --> 00:45:18.151
It means that the person that is in

00:45:18.192 --> 00:45:20.194
control of your updates for your

00:45:20.413 --> 00:45:21.594
dependencies, your packages,

00:45:21.614 --> 00:45:23.015
your plugins and themes and whatever,

00:45:23.035 --> 00:45:24.377
and maybe WordPress core itself,

00:45:25.198 --> 00:45:27.558
is the person that knows how to deal

00:45:27.598 --> 00:45:29.801
with the problem of, oh,

00:45:29.901 --> 00:45:31.122
I updated something and now I have a

00:45:31.161 --> 00:45:31.602
white screen.

00:45:32.533 --> 00:45:32.993
So, like,

00:45:33.352 --> 00:45:36.254
a user who is clicking update on a

00:45:36.314 --> 00:45:38.176
WordPress plugin and then it white screens

00:45:38.196 --> 00:45:39.696
as a result of that has no idea

00:45:39.716 --> 00:45:41.256
what to do and nowhere to go from

00:45:41.297 --> 00:45:41.536
there.

00:45:41.556 --> 00:45:44.337
Whereas if I'm a developer and I'm

00:45:45.218 --> 00:45:46.259
tagging, you know,

00:45:46.379 --> 00:45:48.279
tipping one of those version points to the

00:45:48.319 --> 00:45:50.301
next version and it white screens, well,

00:45:50.881 --> 00:45:52.281
I know that I can fix that because

00:45:52.321 --> 00:45:53.301
I can just roll it back or I

00:45:53.321 --> 00:45:55.502
can, you know, find a patch or whatever.

00:45:58.085 --> 00:45:58.904
But then if you,

00:45:59.444 --> 00:46:00.605
so then you think about, like,

00:46:00.946 --> 00:46:02.267
I had this conversation with a project

00:46:02.286 --> 00:46:04.609
manager, product manager at Pantheon.

00:46:04.649 --> 00:46:05.029
He's like, well,

00:46:05.609 --> 00:46:07.310
could you do something that was, like,

00:46:07.910 --> 00:46:09.792
Composer-based but inside the admin

00:46:09.812 --> 00:46:10.272
somehow?

00:46:11.152 --> 00:46:11.933
And, like,

00:46:12.212 --> 00:46:14.975
a plug-in that was also managing Composer

00:46:14.995 --> 00:46:15.355
files.

00:46:15.375 --> 00:46:17.817
And, like, there's so many, like,

00:46:18.236 --> 00:46:18.776
it's weird.

00:46:18.817 --> 00:46:19.777
It's a weird headspace.

00:46:19.837 --> 00:46:19.997
Yeah.

00:46:20.457 --> 00:46:20.819
Yeah,

00:46:20.919 --> 00:46:22.421
I'm trying to wrap my head around that

00:46:22.460 --> 00:46:23.281
my initial thought is,

00:46:24.243 --> 00:46:26.627
I don't think that would kind of defeat

00:46:26.647 --> 00:46:27.408
the purpose.

00:46:29.290 --> 00:46:31.212
And it's in the context of WP admin,

00:46:31.252 --> 00:46:35.459
but I maybe there is something out there.

00:46:35.899 --> 00:46:37.600
Yeah, I mean, I think there actually is,

00:46:37.640 --> 00:46:38.241
like, I think there's, like,

00:46:38.261 --> 00:46:41.442
a WP Composer plug-in or something that

00:46:41.482 --> 00:46:42.522
kind of sort of does that.

00:46:42.823 --> 00:46:43.924
And obviously there's also, like,

00:46:44.924 --> 00:46:48.207
there's a Composer project called Satis,

00:46:48.227 --> 00:46:49.247
which is you can host your own

00:46:49.567 --> 00:46:50.167
repositories.

00:46:50.187 --> 00:46:51.368
And so there's SatisPress,

00:46:51.408 --> 00:46:53.210
which kind of turns a WordPress site into

00:46:53.250 --> 00:46:54.089
a Satis server.

00:46:54.109 --> 00:46:56.531
So you could host your own repository.

00:46:57.292 --> 00:46:59.616
sort of package manager inside of a

00:46:59.676 --> 00:47:00.337
WordPress site,

00:47:00.357 --> 00:47:01.660
which is also a weird thing.

00:47:03.142 --> 00:47:04.884
But like there's that fundamental tension

00:47:05.064 --> 00:47:06.707
of like, you know,

00:47:06.808 --> 00:47:08.790
a site owner versus a developer.

00:47:09.212 --> 00:47:10.093
And in WordPress,

00:47:12.491 --> 00:47:14.993
In WordPress, I don't know.

00:47:15.493 --> 00:47:17.674
Those are two different personas.

00:47:18.254 --> 00:47:19.794
And I don't know that a site owner

00:47:19.975 --> 00:47:20.995
should be a developer.

00:47:21.315 --> 00:47:23.497
But a developer could be a site owner.

00:47:24.076 --> 00:47:26.857
But you shouldn't force a site owner to

00:47:26.877 --> 00:47:27.718
become a developer,

00:47:27.959 --> 00:47:29.118
I think is what I'm trying to say.

00:47:29.460 --> 00:47:29.640
Right.

00:47:29.960 --> 00:47:31.140
No, I would agree with you there.

00:47:31.160 --> 00:47:32.520
Yeah.

00:47:32.620 --> 00:47:32.841
Yeah.

00:47:35.408 --> 00:47:38.993
Well, yeah, thanks for coming on, Carrie.

00:47:39.814 --> 00:47:41.134
This has been awesome.

00:47:41.835 --> 00:47:44.578
I loved chatting about LinkedIn learning

00:47:44.658 --> 00:47:47.422
and learning about all of that process.

00:47:48.723 --> 00:47:51.046
Where can people find you on the internet

00:47:51.466 --> 00:47:54.109
if they were to so go looking for

00:47:54.149 --> 00:47:54.270
you?

00:47:55.354 --> 00:47:56.575
Come say hello.

00:47:57.415 --> 00:48:00.576
I'm kerrydills.com is my website.

00:48:00.656 --> 00:48:02.417
And then my blue sky handle is also

00:48:02.517 --> 00:48:03.337
kerrydills.com.

00:48:04.658 --> 00:48:07.279
Find me on LinkedIn or I'm not super

00:48:07.419 --> 00:48:07.759
active.

00:48:07.779 --> 00:48:09.560
I'm more of a lurker and post status

00:48:09.600 --> 00:48:09.919
chat,

00:48:09.960 --> 00:48:13.201
but you can find me at C Dills,

00:48:13.241 --> 00:48:14.922
D I L S over there.

00:48:14.962 --> 00:48:16.343
And yeah, love to say hello.

00:48:17.214 --> 00:48:17.593
Awesome.

00:48:18.194 --> 00:48:20.276
Well, thanks again, Carrie, for coming on.

00:48:20.515 --> 00:48:21.357
And thank you,

00:48:21.417 --> 00:48:22.757
everyone who might be watching or

00:48:22.817 --> 00:48:24.479
listening in the future.

00:48:24.799 --> 00:48:27.560
And we'll see you on the internet.

00:48:27.580 --> 00:48:28.080
Thank you, Chris.