183 Tom McFarlin on Quality Code and Marketing your Business

Tom is a self-employed WordPress developer and a top contributor to the WordPress development community. Tom also runs a small business called Pressware, that builds web applications, sites, themes, plugins, and more – using WordPress. He also works as the Tuts+ Code editor where he is responsible for overseeing all of the Web Development and CMS content that’s published via Envato. You can find a lot of Tom’s open source work both in the WordPress Plugin Repository as well as on GitHub (though some of it’s quite old and outdated so be mindful of the dates in the repository). Tom tries to keep as many repositories as updated as possible, but contracts and clients come first, so those projects take a backseat.   TomMcFarlin.com https://tommcfarlin.com/   Pressware https://pressware.co/   ==================   Our episode this week is sponsored by LiquidWeb and Beaver Builder. Our first sponsor this week is Beaver Builder. What sets Beaver Builder apart from their competition is their thriving community, top-notch-support, and third-party ecosystem. The Beaver Builder 2.0 UI and Beaver Themer are also right around the corner. If you've been on the fence about using a page builder, now might be the time to give Beaver Builder a try.   ===================   Liquid Web is offering a 33% discount for your first 6 months of managed WordPress hosting. Head over to https://LiquidWeb.com/wordpress and use the code WPTONIC33 at checkout for your discount.   ==================   Table of Contents for Episode 183   0:00 Podcast intros. 4:04 How did Tom first get into web development? 7:50 What initially attracted Tom to the WordPress ecosystem? 14:12 Where did the decision to blog daily come from, and what impact did that have on Tom's career? 21:21 Where does Tom's passion for code quality come from? Is the WordPress ecosystem getting better at quality development? 29:04 WordPress is not the new hotness, but it is reliable and stable. 34:40 Thoughts on telemetry in 2017. 40:36 How the WordPress UI may evolve in 2017. 44:01 Quick thoughts on e-commerce and WordPress. 46:51 Podcast outros.   ===================   Find bonus content for this episode on the WP-Tonic website: https://www.wp-tonic.com/183-tom-mcfarlin/   ===================   Subscribe to WP-Tonic on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wp-tonic-wordpress-podcast/id893083124?mt=2   ===================   WP-Tonic is both a WordPress maintenance service, and the publisher of a twice-weekly WordPress podcast.