Community + Code: Episode 26 - Courtney Robertson

๐ **Source:** [Community + Code: Episode 26 - Courtney Robertson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfkRuYJN3lM)
> [!note]+ Document Notes
> tags: [developer-relations, ai-automation, wordpress-core, community-management, open-source-licensing, devrel-frameworks]
> author: [MISSING]
> source: Community + Code Podcast
> reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfkRuYJN3lM
> date created: {{date:YYYY-MM-DD}} {{time:HH:mm}}
>
> # ๐ท๏ธ Title: Community + Code: Episode 26 - Courtney Robertson
>
<!-- deep-read:sections start -->
## ๐งญ Table of Contents
- [๐ Summary](#-summary)
- [๐ Main Content](#-main-content)
- [๐๏ธ Notes](#๏ธ-notes)
- [๐ References](#-references)
- [๐ฃ๏ธ Paraphrase](#๏ธ-paraphrase)
- [๐ฐ Newsletter](#-newsletter)
- [โ
Action Items](#-action-items)
- [๐งช Hypotheses](#-hypotheses)
- [๐ Methodology](#-methodology)
- [โ Questions](#-questions)
- [๐ฎ Future Research](#-future-research)
- [๐ก Implications](#-implications)
- [๐ง Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment)
- [๐ Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment)
- [๐ DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment)
- [โ
Logical Validity](#-logical-validity)
- [๐ก๏ธ DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis)
- [๐ฏ Conclusion](#-conclusion)
## ๐ Summary
- **What happened**: Developer advocate Courtney Robertson discusses her role connecting GoDaddy with WordPress core development, using AI for automation and coding, and the intersection of human-focused community work with technical development.
- **Why it matters**: Shows how DevRel bridges corporate interests with open source communities, and highlights both opportunities and risks of AI-assisted development.
- **Key stakeholders**: GoDaddy, WordPress core team, WP Community Collective, developers using AI tools, open source maintainers.
- **Risks and tradeoffs**: AI code generation creates licensing uncertainty and widens knowledge gaps between developers and underlying dependencies.
- **Bottom line**: DevRel requires extensive "glue work" connecting technical and business domains, while AI amplifies both productivity and complexity in open source ecosystems.
## ๐ Main Content
Courtney Robertson exemplifies the multi-faceted nature of developer relations work, serving as a bridge between GoDaddy's hosting infrastructure and the WordPress open source project. Her role involves coordinating between engineers testing new WordPress features on GoDaddy's platforms, contributing to WordPress core teams, and ensuring compatibility across hosting environments.
The DevRel framework she describes positions community as the foundational trunk, with three pillars: developer marketing (requiring unique skills since developers resist traditional marketing), developer experience (focusing on onboarding and tooling), and developer success (gathering feedback from those building with company offerings). Developer education sits at the top, encompassing all these elements.
Robertson's extensive use of AI spans from early accessibility work (using Otter.ai for video transcription) to current automation workflows involving Claude for coding, Dscript for video editing, and various tools for knowledge management. She's used AI to build WordPress plugins for post formats and XFN integration that would have taken months to develop manually.
The conversation explores tensions around AI-generated code and open source licensing, referencing concerns raised by PHP maintainer Juliet Randers-Fulmer about license compliance uncertainty when AI pulls from various GitHub repositories without clear provenance tracking.
## ๐๏ธ Notes
#### โฑ๏ธ [00:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfkRuYJN3lM&t=0) Introduction and Background
- Chris introduces Courtney Robertson: developer advocate at GoDaddy, WordPress core contributor, WP Community Collective board member
- Courtney's reputation for connecting people - took Chris's "don't wallflower" request as personal challenge
- Focus on "glue work" - making connections between people and groups
#### โฑ๏ธ [00:03:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfkRuYJN3lM&t=192) DevRel Work at GoDaddy
- GoDaddy has multiple WordPress hosting tiers: shared, managed, Pagefly enterprise, WooCommerce-specific
- Courtney serves as "dotted line" connector between hosting infrastructure and WordPress core
- Works with two full-time contributors: Kira Schroeder and George Mamadashvili
- Tests new WordPress features like collaborative editing for performance impact on hosting platforms
#### โฑ๏ธ [00:08:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfkRuYJN3lM&t=495) DevRel Framework and Multiple Hats
- DevRel framework: Community as trunk, three pillars (marketing, experience, success), education at top
- Developer marketing requires understanding that "developers hate being marketed to"
- Glue work often undervalued but essential for connecting technical and business concerns
- Testing workflows for plugins against pending WordPress releases
#### โฑ๏ธ [00:15:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfkRuYJN3lM&t=930) WordPress 7.0 and Command Palette
- Matt Mullenweg's recent meeting showed interest in command palette interface for admin dashboard
- Concern about admin bar conflicts with existing plugins and themes
- Example of how DevRel involves anticipating impacts and communicating internally
#### โฑ๏ธ [00:18:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfkRuYJN3lM&t=1125) Career Journey and Teaching Background
- Started as computer science/business education high school teacher
- Taught WordPress development in 2015 using Pippin's plugins videos
- Transitioned through The Events Calendar, adult bootcamps, to current DevRel role
- Entry point: failed to buy WordCamp ticket, volunteered for registration
#### โฑ๏ธ [00:25:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfkRuYJN3lM&t=1520) AI Usage Evolution
- Early use: Otter.ai for WordPress learn.wordpress.org video captioning
- Dscript for video editing, eye contact correction, pronunciation fixes
- Current workflow: RSS โ ReadWise โ Obsidian vault with AI assistance
- Knowledge worker approach using AI for content curation and note-taking
#### โฑ๏ธ [00:32:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfkRuYJN3lM&t=1930) AI Coding Projects
- Built WordPress plugins for post formats and XFN using AI
- Used Claude to set up OpenClaw on Railway, connect with Penpot and ActivePieces
- AI handles research that would take days: "Can you do this thing?" โ working code in 5 minutes
- Includes security testing, accessibility considerations, DEIB inclusivity in prompts
#### โฑ๏ธ [00:38:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfkRuYJN3lM&t=2325) Chris's Hackathon Experience
- Built Pantheon dashboard integration plugin using Claude in one week
- Thousands of lines of code that would have taken months manually
- AI knew WordPress hooks, implemented complex multisite functionality automatically
- Demonstrates research acceleration: AI instantly knows technical details
#### โฑ๏ธ [00:42:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfkRuYJN3lM&t=2550) Open Source Licensing Concerns
- Reference to Juliet Randers-Fulmer's concerns about AI code provenance
- AI training on GitHub repos creates license compliance uncertainty
- Can't verify if generated code comes from GPL, MIT, or conflicting licenses
- Courtney suggests prompting AI to check licenses, but acknowledges limitations
#### โฑ๏ธ [00:47:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfkRuYJN3lM&t=2835) Maintainer Burnout and AI Impact
- Matplotlib maintainer harassment by OpenClaw bot for rejected PR
- cURL shuttering bug bounty program due to overwhelming AI-generated reports
- Growing gap between developers and maintainers of dependencies they use
- AI creates barrier to understanding underlying open source projects
#### โฑ๏ธ [00:52:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfkRuYJN3lM&t=3120) Future AI Usage Plans
- Planning to use AI for WP Community Collective release posts
- Will use AI for initial draft but manually review all GitHub issues
- AI helps translate engineer thinking: "what was in that engineer's head?"
- Reduces social awkwardness in technical conversations
## ๐ References
- [Developer Relations book](https://developerrelations.com/)
- [WordPress Learn platform](https://learn.wordpress.org)
- [PHPCS (PHP Code Sniffer)](https://github.com/squizlabs/PHP_CodeSniffer)
- [Open Source Initiative](https://opensource.org)
- [WP Community Collective](https://wpcommunity.org)
## ๐ฃ๏ธ Paraphrase
Courtney Robertson demonstrates how modern developer relations work requires wearing multiple hats while serving as a crucial connector between corporate interests and open source communities. Her role at GoDaddy involves coordinating between hosting infrastructure teams and WordPress core development, ensuring new features work across different hosting environments while contributing back to the community.
The conversation reveals how AI is transforming both productivity and complexity in development work. Robertson uses AI for everything from video editing and content curation to building WordPress plugins that would have taken months to create manually. However, this efficiency comes with new challenges around licensing compliance and maintaining understanding of the underlying systems developers build upon.
## ๐ฐ Newsletter
๐ **DevRel Meets AI: The New Frontier of WordPress Development**
This week's Community + Code episode features Courtney Robertson from GoDaddy, showcasing how developer advocates are navigating the intersection of human-centered community work and AI-powered development.
**Key takeaways for WordPress developers:**
- **DevRel Framework**: Community foundation + Marketing/Experience/Success pillars + Education capstone
- **AI Acceleration**: Plugin development that took months now happens in days with tools like Claude
- **Licensing Concerns**: AI code generation raises questions about open source license compliance
- **The Glue Work**: Connecting technical teams with business needs remains fundamentally human
**Resources mentioned:**
- Developer Relations book for framework understanding
- Dscript for AI-powered video editing
- ReadWise + Obsidian for AI-assisted knowledge management
- PHP Code Sniffer (PHPCS) for code standards
The episode highlights both opportunities and risks as WordPress developers increasingly rely on AI tools while maintaining the human connections that drive open source success.
## โ
Action Items
#### DevRel
- Research developer relations framework: community base, marketing/experience/success pillars, education capstone
- Establish testing workflows for WordPress releases against hosting environments
- Create processes for translating engineering decisions to business stakeholders
- Document glue work contributions for performance reviews and team visibility
- Develop AI prompting strategies that include licensing compliance checks
- Build knowledge management systems for industry monitoring and trend analysis
#### WordPress
- **Core**: Test collaborative editing features for hosting environment performance impacts
- **Core Performance**: Monitor admin bar modifications for command palette integration conflicts
- **Training**: Update learn.wordpress.org content creation workflows with AI transcription tools
- **Community**: Document DevRel best practices for corporate-OSS collaboration bridges
- **Documentation**: Create guidance for AI-assisted plugin development with security considerations
- **Accessibility**: Integrate AI transcription tools while maintaining human review for accuracy
#### Community
- **Maintainers**: Address AI-generated pull request volume and quality concerns
- **Contributors**: Establish guidelines for AI code contribution disclosure and review processes
- **Sponsors**: Balance AI productivity gains with understanding of underlying project dependencies
## ๐งช Hypotheses
- AI-assisted development widens the knowledge gap between developers and the open source maintainers whose work they depend on
- Developer relations professionals serve as increasingly critical bridges as technical complexity grows
- AI code generation will force evolution in open source licensing frameworks and compliance tools
- The "glue work" of connecting technical and business domains becomes more valuable as AI automates coding tasks
- Traditional developer education approaches need restructuring to account for AI-accelerated learning paths
- Corporate contribution to open source projects requires new models that account for AI-assisted development
### ๐ Methodology
- Longitudinal studies tracking developer understanding of dependencies pre/post AI adoption
- Analysis of maintainer burnout correlation with AI-generated issue volume
- Survey research on DevRel role evolution in AI-augmented development environments
- Case studies of licensing compliance approaches in AI-generated codebases
- Ethnographic studies of human connection patterns in increasingly automated development workflows
### โ Questions
- How can open source projects maintain quality while managing increased AI-generated contribution volume?
- What new skills do developer advocates need as AI changes the technical landscape?
- How should licensing frameworks evolve to address AI code generation uncertainty?
- What governance models best support corporate-OSS collaboration in the AI era?
- How can developer education maintain depth while leveraging AI acceleration?
### ๐ฎ Future Research
- Impact of AI code generation on open source maintainer sustainability
- Evolution of developer relations roles as technical abstractions increase
- Legal framework development for AI-generated code licensing compliance
- Community governance models for AI-augmented development workflows
- Educational pedagogy for AI-assisted learning in technical domains
### ๐ก Implications
- **Practice**: DevRel work requires new frameworks for managing AI-human collaboration boundaries
- **Policy**: Open source licensing needs updating for AI-generated code provenance uncertainty
- **Security**: AI-assisted development requires enhanced testing and review processes
- **Education**: Technical education must balance AI acceleration with deep understanding maintenance
- **Funding**: Open source sustainability models need adjustment for AI impact on maintenance burden
### ๐ง Learning Styles Assessment
Reading level estimate: Grade 12-14 (Flesch-Kincaid). Technical vocabulary with conversational tone.
#### ๐ Visual learners
- Present: DevRel framework tree diagram, AI workflow illustrations
- Improve: Add hosting architecture diagrams, WordPress release timeline visuals, AI tool integration flowcharts
#### ๐ Aural learners
- Present: Full podcast audio with natural conversation flow
- Improve: Chapter markers for key topics, audio summaries of technical concepts
#### ๐ฃ๏ธ Verbal learners
- Present: Clear definitions of DevRel, extensive examples and analogies
- Improve: Glossary of technical terms, comparative explanations of AI tools
#### ๐งฉ Kinesthetic learners
- Present: Hands-on plugin development examples, step-by-step AI workflows
- Improve: Interactive AI prompting exercises, WordPress testing checklists
#### ๐ง Logical learners
- Present: Framework structures, cause-effect relationships in AI adoption
- Improve: Decision trees for AI tool selection, licensing compliance flowcharts
#### ๐งโ๐คโ๐ง Social learners
- Present: Community collaboration examples, human connection emphasis
- Improve: Discussion prompts about AI ethics, group exercises on DevRel challenges
#### ๐งโโ๏ธ Solitary learners
- Present: Individual reflection on career evolution, personal AI experimentation
- Improve: Self-assessment tools for DevRel skills, private journaling prompts
#### ๐ฟ Naturalistic learners
- Present: Ecosystem thinking about open source sustainability
- Improve: Environmental metaphors for community health, growth pattern analogies
### ๐ Accessibility Assessment
#### Screen reader semantics
- Present: Proper heading hierarchy, descriptive link text for references
- Improve: Alt text for any DevRel framework diagrams, table headers for AI tool comparisons
#### Keyboard navigation
- Present: Logical reading order, clear focus indicators
- Improve: Skip links for long transcript sections, keyboard shortcuts for audio controls
#### Contrast and readability
- Present: High contrast text, readable font sizes
- Improve: Ensure code examples meet contrast requirements, test with high contrast mode
#### Media and captions
- Present: Full transcript provided for podcast audio
- Improve: Timestamp accuracy verification, speaker identification clarity
### ๐ DEIB Assessment
#### Cultural breadth
- Present: Global open source community perspective, diverse AI tool examples
- Improve: Include non-Western AI development approaches, multilingual resource links
#### Inclusive language
- Present: Gender-neutral technical terms, defined acronyms
- Improve: Plain language alternatives for technical jargon, cultural context for community norms
#### Neurodiversity support
- Present: Clear section breaks, consistent formatting patterns
- Improve: Content warnings for rapid technical discussions, summary boxes for key concepts
#### Representation
- Present: Female developer advocate perspective in male-dominated field
- Improve: Acknowledge varying access to AI tools, include diverse career path examples
### โ
Logical Validity
#### Strong reasoning
- **Inductive reasoning**: Robertson's personal experience with AI tools supports broader claims about productivity gains (timestamp 32:10)
- **Causal reasoning**: Clear connection between AI adoption and maintainer burden increase, supported by specific examples (47:15)
- **Analogical reasoning**: DevRel framework tree analogy effectively explains role complexity and interdependencies (8:15)
#### Fallacies
- **Hasty generalization**: Claiming all developers resist traditional marketing based on DevRel community consensus - needs broader data support
- **Appeal to authority**: Referencing Juliet Randers-Fulmer's expertise without fully exploring counterarguments to licensing concerns
- **False dichotomy**: Implying choice between AI efficiency and deep understanding when hybrid approaches exist
#### Tone of voice
- Collaborative and exploratory, with phrases like "I'm interested in how it lands" and "that's a good one"
- Technical expertise balanced with conversational accessibility
- Honest about limitations and uncertainties rather than overselling solutions
### ๐ก๏ธ DARVO Analysis
No DARVO patterns detected. The conversation maintains collaborative problem-solving tone throughout, with both participants acknowledging challenges and uncertainties rather than defensive positioning. Disagreements are explored constructively rather than dismissed or deflected.
## ๐ฏ Conclusion
This conversation illuminates the complex intersection of human-centered community work and AI-accelerated development in the WordPress ecosystem. Robertson's experience demonstrates how DevRel professionals serve as crucial connectors between corporate interests and open source communities, while AI tools dramatically increase productivity at the cost of introducing new complexities around licensing, maintainer burden, and knowledge gaps.
The practical next step for developers is to thoughtfully integrate AI tools while maintaining awareness of underlying dependencies and actively contributing back to the open source projects they build upon. For organizations, investing in DevRel roles that can navigate these technical and human complexities becomes increasingly critical as the ecosystem evolves.
## ๐งฑ Refactor Appendix
### ๐ Literature Split Pad
### DevRel requires extensive glue work connecting domains
> [!quote] [Community + Code Episode 26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfkRuYJN3lM) by [[Chris Wiegman]] via [[Community + Code Podcast]]. Published 2024. Accessed {{date:YYYY-MM-DD}}.
> "We do what's called glue work and sometimes that can be undervalued."
Robertson emphasizes the connecting function across technical and business domains as core DevRel responsibility.
[view highlight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfkRuYJN3lM&t=1125) #xref #articleseed ID:rw_001
### AI code generation creates licensing compliance uncertainty
> [!quote] [Community + Code Episode 26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfkRuYJN3lM) by [[Courtney Robertson]] via [[Community + Code Podcast]]. Published 2024. Accessed {{date:YYYY-MM-DD}}.
> "We have no real idea where the sources or origins of some of that code comes from and under what licenses."
Highlighting fundamental challenge of AI training on diverse GitHub repositories without license provenance tracking.
[view highlight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfkRuYJN3lM&t=2550) #xref ID:rw_002
### AI widens knowledge gap between developers and dependencies
> [!quote] [Community + Code Episode 26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfkRuYJN3lM) by [[Chris Wiegman]] via [[Community + Code Podcast]]. Published 2024. Accessed {{date:YYYY-MM-DD}}.
> "There's an increasing gap between your knowledge as a developer and the maintainer of the things that you're using."
AI abstraction prevents developers from understanding the open source projects their code depends on.
[view highlight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfkRuYJN3lM&t=2835) #articleseed ID:rw_003
---
### ๐ Atomic Split Pad (Zettel Candidates)
#### DevRel framework structures community as foundational base
- Framework positions community as trunk with marketing/experience/success pillars topped by education
- Timestamp 8:15 discussion of developer relations framework structure
- Links: [[Community-Management]] [[Developer-Marketing]] [[Technical-Education]]
#### AI accelerates development while obscuring code origins
- Plugin development reduced from months to days but creates licensing uncertainty
- Multiple examples from 32:10-42:30 of rapid AI-assisted development
- Links: [[Open-Source-Licensing]] [[AI-Code-Generation]] [[Developer-Productivity]]
#### Maintainer burnout increases with AI-generated contributions
- Specific examples of harassment and overwhelmed bug bounty programs
- Discussion at 47:15 about matplotlib and cURL maintainer experiences
- Links: [[Open-Source-Sustainability]] [[AI-Impact]] [[Community-Health]]
---
### โ๏ธ Fleeting Queue (Extract by Selection)
- DevRel professionals become more valuable as AI automates coding tasks โ context/glue-work-specialization #fleeting #inbox
- WordPress command palette integration may conflict with existing admin bar customizations โ context/wp-70-preview #fleeting #inbox
- AI transcription tools still require human review for accuracy and accessibility โ context/learn-wordpress-captioning #fleeting #inbox
- Knowledge management workflows using RSS โ ReadWise โ Obsidian enable AI-assisted research โ context/content-curation-automation #fleeting #inbox
- Open source licensing frameworks need evolution for AI code generation era โ context/legal-compliance-uncertainty #fleeting #inbox
---
## Full Transcript
[00:19] Hey, welcome back to Community and Code.<br>[00:22] I'm Chris, Jazz Sequence on the<br>[00:23] internet, and my guest today is Courtney<br>[00:25] Robertson, developer advocate at<br>[00:27] GoDaddy, longtime WordPress core<br>[00:29] contributor, co-founding board member of<br>[00:31] the WP Community Collective, and a good<br>[00:33] friend of mine, who when I asked her to<br>[00:35] make sure I didn't wallflower at Prescom<br>[00:37] in 2025, the first event I would go to<br>[00:40] solo after becoming a developer advocate<br>[00:42] at Pantheon, she took that as a personal<br>[00:44] challenge and said about introducing me<br>[00:46] to as many movers and shakers as<br>[00:48] possible. That's sort of what Courtney<br>[00:50] does and what she's always done really<br>[00:51] well. Above and beyond the WordPress<br>[00:53] documentation and education stuff she's<br>[00:55] contributed to over the years. It's<br>[00:57] really the glue work of making<br>[00:59] connections between people and groups<br>[01:00] that make Courtney unique. We talk about<br>[01:02] many things including Devril. Um but we<br>[01:05] focus a lot on AI particularly how we<br>[01:08] are using AI in our own very human<br>[01:10] focused roles. She's honest about that<br>[01:12] tension. We revisit the Juliet Randers<br>[01:15] Fulmer conversation from a few episodes<br>[01:17] back. the open source licensing<br>[01:18] question, the maintainer burnout<br>[01:20] problem, and the gap between what AI<br>[01:23] lets developers build and what<br>[01:24] developers actually understand about the<br>[01:27] things they're building on. This is a<br>[01:29] good one. So, let's get into it. Without<br>[01:31] further ado, Courtney, welcome to<br>[01:33] Community and Code, the podcast where we<br>[01:35] talk to the human beings behind the<br>[01:37] commits. And I'm here today with<br>[01:39] Courtney Robertson, who you might know<br>[01:40] in the WordPress space as a developer<br>[01:43] advocate at GoDaddy. Uh Courtney's been<br>[01:45] a longtime WordPress core contributor.<br>[01:47] Welcome to the show, Courtney.<br>[01:49] >> Hello, Chris. It's good to see you. One<br>[01:52] of the first things that I uh recognized<br>[01:54] is that I think one of the first<br>[01:56] conversations we had was you indicating<br>[01:58] >> um that we'd be at an event together and<br>[02:00] you wanted to connect with other Devril<br>[02:02] folks as we often do. Mhm. Yes, that was<br>[02:06] that would have been going into<br>[02:07] Presconf, which was the first event that<br>[02:11] I went to as a developer advocate that I<br>[02:14] went to solo.<br>[02:16] >> And I had I've gone I had gone to like<br>[02:19] events solo uh myself as a speaker. I've<br>[02:22] gone to events as part of like an agency<br>[02:25] and I had gone to events as just an<br>[02:28] engineer that was going with like the<br>[02:30] Pantheon team to events. But it was the<br>[02:32] first time I was going to something solo<br>[02:34] and I didn't want to uh default to the<br>[02:38] wallflower version of me that doesn't<br>[02:40] open conversations.<br>[02:43] >> Yeah. You know, I don't know if this is<br>[02:44] a general statement or a trend. I've<br>[02:46] noticed some of the best engineers in my<br>[02:50] life and Devril, a lot of people get<br>[02:52] there first by being an engineer. Um,<br>[02:56] a lot of them are introverted<br>[02:58] kind of folks and it takes that when you<br>[03:00] get into the heads down zone. Um, so<br>[03:03] it's it's curious to me that um going<br>[03:08] from the wallflower to I've got a<br>[03:12] podcast and I'm here and I'm there.<br>[03:13] How's that going for you?<br>[03:15] >> Uh, I mean it it's pretty good. Like I I<br>[03:17] I will say that like I I oscillate<br>[03:22] between you know two extremes and um<br>[03:26] like a lot of less uh introverts that<br>[03:30] are less on the extreme introversion. I<br>[03:32] like am fine when I know the people<br>[03:35] around me um and I like have somebody<br>[03:38] that I can kind of latch on to and but<br>[03:41] like it's difficult to want to insert<br>[03:43] myself into conversations. It doesn't<br>[03:45] come naturally. But I am also very sort<br>[03:49] of extroverted generally and did lots of<br>[03:50] theater and like like hanging out and<br>[03:52] and get energy from being around people<br>[03:54] and doing all of those sorts of things.<br>[03:55] I just need a little bit of a a nudge<br>[03:57] sometimes to to enter into things.<br>[03:59] >> Um<br>[04:01] >> but uh but yeah, no, I think I think<br>[04:04] yeah, this so we this is the last of a<br>[04:08] series of recordings that I accidentally<br>[04:10] deleted.<br>[04:12] And uh at the time that we did this<br>[04:16] recording originally, I was talking<br>[04:18] about the number of hats that you wear.<br>[04:20] >> Uh and the number of hats that I wear<br>[04:22] has actually increased in the<br>[04:24] intervening time. So, and and we're both<br>[04:27] at this intersection uh of uh like like<br>[04:32] there's a bunch of different communities<br>[04:33] that I'm that I'm like involved in, a<br>[04:35] bunch of different Slacks and things.<br>[04:37] And uh one of those communities is like<br>[04:39] Devril Broadley and one of those<br>[04:41] communities is WordPress broadly. And so<br>[04:44] this we're both kind of at this<br>[04:45] intersection of of Devril and and<br>[04:47] WordPress specifically.<br>[04:49] >> Yeah.<br>[04:49] >> Um<br>[04:50] >> how do you devril for WordPress for me?<br>[04:55] >> That's that's a good one. So um<br>[04:58] >> my time is my h most of my time that I<br>[05:02] do these things is my employer. And so<br>[05:05] it starts with I have a role that if<br>[05:08] you've ever worked in a corporate<br>[05:09] environment, you understand the term<br>[05:10] dotted line. It means that you're the<br>[05:12] connector of the things, right? And so<br>[05:16] what a lot of Devril is or looks like um<br>[05:21] is involving a lot of connection. And so<br>[05:24] GoDaddy<br>[05:25] has several WordPress hosting plans<br>[05:27] available as well as we have shared<br>[05:29] hosting. Um, we have managed hosting,<br>[05:32] everything from a managed regular simple<br>[05:35] site to pageely enterprise scale and<br>[05:38] unique things for Woo Commerce. But then<br>[05:40] we also have a lot of business at<br>[05:42] GoDaddy that is your SMB audience, your<br>[05:44] small medium-sized businesses. And a lot<br>[05:47] of those folks have historically chosen<br>[05:49] a shared hosting plan. And so I'm<br>[05:52] looking at WordPress in all of our<br>[05:54] areas. and the ability to contribute and<br>[05:57] be that dotted line means finding the<br>[06:00] value that GoDaddy needs to know about<br>[06:02] in the process of everything, right? And<br>[06:04] so I don't I I contribute whether or not<br>[06:09] God is my employer to a lot of things<br>[06:12] and I have been a contributor to<br>[06:13] WordPress since 2009 when I failed to<br>[06:17] buy a ticket to work camp mid-Atlantic<br>[06:19] in which Anneil Dash then of Movable<br>[06:21] type was the keynote speaker launching a<br>[06:25] competitor to a kismmet. I failed to buy<br>[06:26] my ticket in time and I said is there<br>[06:28] anything I could do to get in and they<br>[06:29] said would you like to register<br>[06:31] everybody at the door? So they thought<br>[06:33] that I was somebody and in fact I was<br>[06:35] absolutely nobody and knew nothing. Um<br>[06:38] but it's a great introduction to doing<br>[06:40] the things right. Can I give people name<br>[06:41] badges? Yeah, I can handle that. That's<br>[06:43] not a problem. Um but then when it comes<br>[06:46] to actually digging into WordPress, you<br>[06:48] know, right now the 70 release is going<br>[06:50] on and one of the things that I am<br>[06:52] working on is um<br>[06:55] connecting. We have two full-time<br>[06:56] contributors to.org. Kira Schroeder and<br>[06:59] George Mama Dashily goes by Mama Duka in<br>[07:02] all of the places George. So, um, great<br>[07:06] folks to get to know and Kira has been<br>[07:08] with the project, I think, since soon<br>[07:10] after college. So, it's been some time<br>[07:12] for folks that are in our age bracket.<br>[07:15] Um, outing myself, too. And so, so I'm<br>[07:18] taking Oh, yeah. We've got, for<br>[07:20] instance, the um,<br>[07:23] uh,<br>[07:25] collaborative editing coming with the<br>[07:27] Google Docs like features in this<br>[07:28] release. And what I saw in the demo is<br>[07:30] that right now it's scoped for two<br>[07:32] people to be able to be logged in at one<br>[07:34] time on a post. And my thoughts go to<br>[07:37] how does this perform in our managed<br>[07:39] environment? How does this perform in<br>[07:41] our shared hosting environment? What<br>[07:43] does that do when we start load testing<br>[07:45] that? And so one of the things I do is<br>[07:48] coordinate the meetings between the<br>[07:50] engineers that take care of our hosting<br>[07:53] environments and our contributors and<br>[07:56] say y'all get together and start<br>[07:58] figuring out what do we have to do to<br>[07:59] make sure that this is going to work. Um<br>[08:02] other things can look like uh a little<br>[08:04] bit of competitor analysis testing out.<br>[08:06] Sometimes when a competitor launches a<br>[08:08] thing or right now it's whoever is<br>[08:10] launching whatever shiny new AI for<br>[08:12] WordPress I I sometimes will go and test<br>[08:14] that.<br>[08:16] But also related to releases, you know,<br>[08:19] being involved in some of the different<br>[08:21] teams in WordPress um has been a real<br>[08:24] help in for instance, if I'm already<br>[08:26] assessing for GoDaddy what is on our<br>[08:29] sites, many sites that we have, whether<br>[08:31] it's a blog post of a general release or<br>[08:34] looking over old help articles, etc.<br>[08:36] that might need to be revised. Well, why<br>[08:39] not also then simultaneously support<br>[08:42] docs and training when I can? Um, why<br>[08:45] not help on the meta team? Yesterday, as<br>[08:49] a funny in the little WordPress<br>[08:50] community bubble, someone was calling<br>[08:52] out how the login page has the new<br>[08:55] color. There's a new default blue coming<br>[08:57] in all of WordPress.<br>[08:59] >> We've had that as a design in our themes<br>[09:01] on.org for several years. Kelly did<br>[09:04] amazing work with this. Um, but in the<br>[09:07] process of that, in updating core runs,<br>[09:11] I'm sorry,.org's org's website<br>[09:13] specifically runs, you know, the beta<br>[09:16] version is on it right now. And so you<br>[09:19] see that some of those buttons changed a<br>[09:20] different color. I saw somebody in<br>[09:22] Twitter sharing that the logo on the<br>[09:24] login page doesn't match the button<br>[09:26] color now because they've updated.org.<br>[09:29] So I went and logged a meta ticket and<br>[09:31] so is that Devril? Sure it is. Could I<br>[09:34] be doing Devril specific to WordPress<br>[09:37] itself? Um, yes I could. that would be<br>[09:40] full-time inside the project. My role is<br>[09:42] sort of that bridge of Devril between<br>[09:45] GoDaddy and the project and looking at<br>[09:48] what's going to make sure that all of<br>[09:49] the WordPress websites that we're<br>[09:50] providing to our customers are really<br>[09:53] top-notch experiences.<br>[09:56] >> Yeah,<br>[09:57] >> that's a lot. And then and it's obvious<br>[09:59] like listening to to that like where all<br>[10:03] the hats come in, right? Because like in<br>[10:06] the course of making all of these<br>[10:08] different connections and being involved<br>[10:09] in all of these different things, which<br>[10:10] is sort of just the natural thing of<br>[10:13] like performing the function of being a<br>[10:16] developer advocate at your hosting<br>[10:19] company, uh that you kind of necessarily<br>[10:24] need to be involved in all these sort of<br>[10:25] adjacent things, which is also the thing<br>[10:27] that I have found.<br>[10:28] >> Yeah. Yeah. And it's we do what's called<br>[10:31] glue work and sometimes that can be<br>[10:33] undervalued. Um, or it could be seen as,<br>[10:37] well, who are you? You're not really on<br>[10:38] my team to whatever,<br>[10:41] but also<br>[10:43] when folks look at the concerns that<br>[10:46] we're raising or the topics we're<br>[10:47] bringing to them, they're like, "Oh,<br>[10:49] yeah, we probably should be doing some<br>[10:50] of that, right?" Um, one of my coming<br>[10:53] soon things to do is to sort of simplify<br>[10:56] the process of testing our different<br>[10:59] plugins against the pending release.<br>[11:01] Mhm.<br>[11:02] >> Um I know that our Sky Verge folks<br>[11:04] pretty thoroughly handle that. That's<br>[11:06] our e-commerce line. That department<br>[11:08] tends to handle that. I need to double<br>[11:09] back and check over are all the features<br>[11:12] inside of Cobblocks, which are some of<br>[11:13] the other plugins we have. Or we've got<br>[11:15] um the bridge between GoDaddyy's hosted<br>[11:19] sites and if anyone's using manage WP or<br>[11:22] the hub, there's a plugin that makes<br>[11:24] that possible for those tools to connect<br>[11:26] to your site to help bulk maintain and<br>[11:29] manage. So, I need to make sure that I'm<br>[11:31] testing, you know, that those things<br>[11:33] will work. Um, and that involves<br>[11:35] spinning up sites on different platforms<br>[11:37] constantly, looking over<br>[11:39] the<br>[11:41] WordPress. Make.wordpress.org/test<br>[11:44] team site for some guidance on what are<br>[11:47] the new features that they really want<br>[11:48] tested. Are there other things that I<br>[11:50] know internally might conflict with<br>[11:52] those features? um prioritizing some of<br>[11:55] that work and also keeping an eye to a<br>[11:57] bit on um you know the official<br>[12:00] WordPress road map is deliberately<br>[12:02] broad and short.<br>[12:05] >> Um but I just attended a meeting with<br>[12:08] Matt Mullen<br>[12:10] last week, the end of last week that was<br>[12:12] his walkthrough on um there's a link to<br>[12:15] it in the core team's posts. there was a<br>[12:18] meeting scheduled for people to come to<br>[12:20] the walkthrough and the recording has<br>[12:21] been posted on that post. It's an<br>[12:23] unlisted YouTube video, but you can all<br>[12:25] get to it. Um, and he was sort of<br>[12:28] describing wanting the command pallet<br>[12:30] interface to be available in the admin<br>[12:32] dashboard.<br>[12:33] So, in attending that meeting, I<br>[12:35] recognized, oh, uh, a lot of plugins,<br>[12:37] themes, and hosting sites put some other<br>[12:39] extras in that admin bar that's not just<br>[12:42] the normal topofthe- window<br>[12:44] notification, and maybe I should start<br>[12:46] letting folks internally know that Matt<br>[12:48] seems to be moving in that direction,<br>[12:51] >> right? It's it's nothing that I can find<br>[12:54] a document about at this time. It was an<br>[12:56] idea that happened in real time. Um,<br>[12:58] it's not coming in 70. it's something<br>[13:00] that he found during the walkthrough<br>[13:02] that he would like to see come. So I<br>[13:04] would imagine that by the time it hits<br>[13:06] an issue or a ticket or something, it's<br>[13:08] going to land in probably 71.<br>[13:11] I have probably a halfozen things that I<br>[13:13] can think of in my admin bar on my<br>[13:16] personal site that like<br>[13:18] >> like and and I can just imagine what<br>[13:20] that's going to look like the CSS as a<br>[13:23] result of putting a command pallet up<br>[13:25] there because<br>[13:27] >> like already there are things that<br>[13:28] sometimes trail down to like the next<br>[13:31] row and look bad and so like that's just<br>[13:32] going to be everything,<br>[13:34] >> right? Yep. and and in the midst of<br>[13:36] being that connector in our respective<br>[13:38] organizations uh always making it really<br>[13:41] clear<br>[13:42] what is the business value of this<br>[13:45] activity<br>[13:46] because we're not just celebrities on<br>[13:50] YouTube as it is or wherever<br>[13:53] >> being a celebrity on YouTube has<br>[13:55] business value.<br>[13:56] >> Oh there's there's that. Yeah. But it's<br>[13:58] also connecting like what is helping<br>[14:01] others that we work with understand what<br>[14:03] it is that we can do for them and also<br>[14:06] likewise them understanding the value of<br>[14:08] what we're bringing to them and making<br>[14:10] it really clear for all the other eyes<br>[14:13] on things that why are we allocating<br>[14:16] time to doing that like why is Courtney<br>[14:20] requesting that we make<br>[14:23] 7.0<br>[14:24] beta available for testing on<br>[14:28] different platforms when it's only beta.<br>[14:30] Well,<br>[14:31] >> right, we want to make sure that we're<br>[14:32] moving in the right direction. So, one<br>[14:34] of the things that I have found and<br>[14:35] there's a a graphic with this that I've<br>[14:37] shared with Chris and he can share it in<br>[14:39] the um show notes, but just kind of this<br>[14:41] idea of what the developer relations<br>[14:42] framework, there's a really great book<br>[14:45] if you're interested in Devril or you<br>[14:47] find yourself suddenly in Devril um<br>[14:50] developer relations that sort of<br>[14:51] discusses what the framework is. And so<br>[14:54] my own journey into this is that I was a<br>[14:56] former compsai high school business ed<br>[14:58] teacher, meaning I taught programming in<br>[15:00] high schools. I taught WordPress in high<br>[15:02] schools in 2015 using Pippen's plugins,<br>[15:06] videos, if we've got any old-timers in<br>[15:08] WordPress around because there really<br>[15:09] wasn't something like learn content<br>[15:11] available yet, learn.wordpress.org.<br>[15:14] Um, I've been a big part of the training<br>[15:15] team over the years and that helped<br>[15:17] launch learn, but I was teaching in the<br>[15:18] classroom teaching how to develop<br>[15:21] WordPress plugins and themes back when<br>[15:24] and I've done this in adult boot camps<br>[15:26] as well. So, that formed my journey in,<br>[15:28] but other people come in by way of um,<br>[15:30] engineering sometimes or there are a few<br>[15:33] other different pathways to get into<br>[15:34] Devril work. But if you envision a tree,<br>[15:38] the base the trunk of the tree is<br>[15:40] community. And then if you imagine that<br>[15:43] there's, you know, three pillars up next<br>[15:47] that include marketing, experience, and<br>[15:50] success. So dev marketing, dev<br>[15:52] experience, and dev success. And at the<br>[15:54] top of it is dev education, developer<br>[15:56] education. I'm not sure that there needs<br>[15:59] to be a<br>[16:01] a specific logical order to all of it<br>[16:03] other than yes, community at the bottom<br>[16:05] because we are community managers in<br>[16:08] addition to engineers, in addition to<br>[16:11] communications specialists, in addition<br>[16:13] to all the things, more hats. Um, and so<br>[16:17] Devril folks when you find yourself in<br>[16:20] an organization that can sustain<br>[16:22] multiple Devril staff often will start<br>[16:25] to specialize into areas. So someone<br>[16:27] with a teaching background might be<br>[16:29] really up for dev education.<br>[16:31] That sounds like what I was doing when I<br>[16:34] was teaching. Um, developer marketing.<br>[16:36] Developers hate being marketed to and it<br>[16:39] takes a unique skill set to explain to<br>[16:41] any company that wishes to target<br>[16:45] developers for their products how to<br>[16:48] market to developers in a way that will<br>[16:50] not put them off because we're we're<br>[16:53] really special. Uh yeah. Um and then<br>[16:57] thinking through what the experience and<br>[16:58] success looks like if your customers are<br>[17:00] developers as well. So um within GoDaddy<br>[17:03] you know we we do specialize in the<br>[17:05] small business sector primarily but we<br>[17:08] have customers really in all segments um<br>[17:10] but what's the experience that whoever<br>[17:12] is developing with our offerings looks<br>[17:15] at so that could look like if I put it<br>[17:18] in the WordPress context<br>[17:20] when you onboard a website with GoDaddy<br>[17:24] uh we offer you both a install a plain<br>[17:27] vanilla or go through our onboarding<br>[17:29] flow that integrates AI into to it and<br>[17:31] can build out quickly. So if a developer<br>[17:34] wanted to go through that flow and then<br>[17:36] had further ideas on um you know I'd<br>[17:40] really like these new AI tools leveraged<br>[17:44] into that or I want the ability to<br>[17:46] synchronize it with my open claw or<br>[17:48] whatever the flavor of the day is.<br>[17:50] getting that kind of feedback from<br>[17:53] whomever is building out the site for<br>[17:55] the customers be it their own staff<br>[17:58] themselves or the hire out getting that<br>[18:01] kind of feedback I think is really<br>[18:03] really important for developer<br>[18:05] experience and success so it's<br>[18:08] we have to think<br>[18:10] my goodness we switch gears so often and<br>[18:13] we have to think about sort of all of<br>[18:14] these different segments going on and<br>[18:16] how we bring business value and also if<br>[18:18] we're adjacent to open source<br>[18:20] how we um how we get to do the good<br>[18:24] altruistic work in in open source that<br>[18:27] aligns with our employers uh priorities<br>[18:31] and then what maybe we pick up<br>[18:33] independent of that as well.<br>[18:36] >> Yeah, it's a it's a there's a lot<br>[18:39] there's a lot of connection. Um I like<br>[18:41] the framework. I have I my entry into<br>[18:44] Devril<br>[18:45] um did not come uh like I a lot of<br>[18:51] people fall into Devril I feel like um<br>[18:54] which is to say they are doing the work<br>[18:57] or some of the work of Devril before<br>[18:59] they actually have the title. Um<br>[19:03] >> and that was definitely true for me. Um<br>[19:06] I was organizing and speaking at word<br>[19:08] camps. um for a long time um and writing<br>[19:14] about stuff whether that was WordPress<br>[19:17] stuff or not but I was writing about<br>[19:19] WordPress stuff usually for like my you<br>[19:21] know employers blog uh for a while<br>[19:24] sometimes on my own blog um and all of<br>[19:26] that stuff is really sort of devril work<br>[19:28] it's like it's it's<br>[19:31] relating to developers it is talking<br>[19:33] about best practices it is like doing<br>[19:35] doing the thing so that and then at uh<br>[19:39] when I I was at Pantheon. Um, we have a<br>[19:41] community Slack and so being engaging in<br>[19:43] the community slack, answering questions<br>[19:45] like enga like that was one of the few<br>[19:48] ways as an engineer that I had uh to get<br>[19:53] insight from people who were using the<br>[19:56] things that we were building, right? Um,<br>[19:59] which is really important for a product<br>[20:01] and engineering team to know to have a a<br>[20:05] line of communication to the people that<br>[20:06] are using the stuff that they build.<br>[20:08] >> Um,<br>[20:10] And uh yeah, so like when I like it was<br>[20:13] already a thing that I I was doing uh<br>[20:16] and now I get to focus on it. And and<br>[20:19] one of the things that I lacked in<br>[20:21] engineering that I feel like I gained<br>[20:24] when I uh joined developer relations was<br>[20:28] the ability to spend more time playing<br>[20:31] with and breaking the stuff.<br>[20:33] >> Yeah.<br>[20:35] because like in order to talk about the<br>[20:37] stuff, I need to use the stuff. And as<br>[20:40] an engineer, I wasn't using it. I was<br>[20:42] only using it to test a bug ticket that<br>[20:44] I was that I was working on. And as soon<br>[20:46] as that bug ticket is is complete, then<br>[20:48] I close it and I shut down the site. And<br>[20:50] I'm not actually using the tools or the<br>[20:52] platform that we're building. But now I<br>[20:55] get to use the thing. And like<br>[20:57] >> you know this this site this website<br>[20:59] that is hosting this podcast is running<br>[21:02] on Pantheon and is running on a specific<br>[21:05] product that is in beta and like all<br>[21:07] sorts of uh stuff because I am I'm I'm<br>[21:11] am doing the thing<br>[21:13] >> like using this as a as a live demo<br>[21:15] environment uh to to test all the stuff.<br>[21:18] >> Absolutely. Yeah. And um you know when<br>[21:21] you're in that cycle where you don't get<br>[21:22] to test with it by the time your workday<br>[21:25] ends,<br>[21:26] >> you're probably not picking it up as a<br>[21:28] hobby, you want to go do<br>[21:31] >> anything else. Anything else?<br>[21:33] >> I've done my time with the computer<br>[21:35] screens. Let me go play in the dirt now.<br>[21:37] Yeah, I do a lot of gardening. So that's<br>[21:41] the reference on go play in the dirt.<br>[21:42] It's like I need once warm weather<br>[21:44] comes. I've got snow out my window right<br>[21:46] now. That blizzard just blew through.<br>[21:48] But as soon as warm weather comes, oh<br>[21:50] goodness, please find me out with the<br>[21:51] tomato plants as soon as I'm out of<br>[21:53] work.<br>[21:55] >> So you talked about your your entry a<br>[21:57] little bit into into WordPress and you<br>[21:58] talked sort of so I imagine that your<br>[22:00] entry into developer relations<br>[22:02] specifically came by way of this sort of<br>[22:03] like training and education sort of<br>[22:05] thing.<br>[22:05] >> It did. Yeah. So um while I was teaching<br>[22:10] um I also put in a few applications.<br>[22:12] because I was looking for some part-time<br>[22:14] work because I was going to have a baby<br>[22:17] and wanted something I could do around<br>[22:19] staying home with the baby. And so I<br>[22:22] pivoted for a while to working at the<br>[22:23] events calendar. Was there for about<br>[22:26] four years. Um got really good at things<br>[22:29] like the agile engineering methods and<br>[22:33] Jira and all of that good stuff. But the<br>[22:35] more important part is that I went from<br>[22:37] working in customer support because I<br>[22:40] could put it down, walk away, take care<br>[22:43] of baby, come back when I need to, etc.<br>[22:45] Um, to writing all of the knowledgebased<br>[22:49] content, maintaining the entire<br>[22:50] knowledge base, as well as uh all of the<br>[22:54] things that go into handling a release.<br>[22:56] So that's writing the release post.<br>[22:58] That's understanding that we need to<br>[23:00] train the staff that are in our support<br>[23:03] about the features that are coming to<br>[23:05] our product and clarify for them. Need<br>[23:08] to relay to the engineers. Here are<br>[23:10] spikes in this thing. Need to identify<br>[23:12] what needs new knowledge based articles,<br>[23:15] help articles, etc. Um did a bit of<br>[23:18] video production there. Did a lot of<br>[23:20] like here's the social media tweet to go<br>[23:23] out announcing the release, etc.<br>[23:26] Um, the team that I grew the most on,<br>[23:29] hilarious story, I never wanted to join<br>[23:31] because it was Woo Commerce and I wanted<br>[23:32] to just stay in my little bubble of the<br>[23:34] events side of the house and not the<br>[23:37] things that integrated with Woo or EDDD<br>[23:40] at the time. Um, but in being forced to<br>[23:42] move teams, I got to know Scott Clark<br>[23:45] really, really well. Scott of Pods and<br>[23:47] now a co-orker of mine at GoDaddy. And<br>[23:50] you know, I used to be intimidated as<br>[23:52] all could be<br>[23:54] on<br>[23:56] interfacing with the engineers because I<br>[23:58] felt that I was bothering them with my<br>[24:00] questions.<br>[24:01] A lot of imposttor syndrome going on and<br>[24:05] realizing that I wanted and could do<br>[24:07] more<br>[24:09] uh during one of our team trips and<br>[24:12] Scott was like, "No, wait. We really<br>[24:15] want your ideas. We want to hear that."<br>[24:18] Um, and so that meant the world to me.<br>[24:20] Scott, Stephen, and um, Gustavo really<br>[24:24] just took the time out. These are<br>[24:26] engineers that I worked with there and<br>[24:28] took the time out to kind of hear out<br>[24:30] the ideas of what is possible, what we<br>[24:32] could do to improve some things and they<br>[24:35] were then happy as could be whenever I<br>[24:37] started correcting their typos on their<br>[24:39] change logs,<br>[24:43] right? Because those are important when<br>[24:44] you get them into a release post. So, I<br>[24:46] was starting to do some of that work and<br>[24:48] then I pivoted uh at the beginning of<br>[24:51] COVID to full-time teaching at a boot<br>[24:53] camp and there were some interesting<br>[24:56] challenges with that. You know, we don't<br>[24:57] have official WordPress.org<br>[25:00] certification at this time and um in the<br>[25:04] education world, they still are subject<br>[25:06] to the same things of the trademark as<br>[25:07] we see in other places. And so they<br>[25:09] can't overtly say this is WordPress<br>[25:13] cert like we're doing a WordPress<br>[25:15] program with use of a logo in the<br>[25:18] education sector because there's no<br>[25:20] processes for that at the time. I am<br>[25:22] hopeful that.org I know that Matt is<br>[25:24] open to.org having certifications and<br>[25:27] I've chatted if we've got longtime<br>[25:28] listeners I've chatted at length with<br>[25:30] Morton and Andrea on these concerns. um<br>[25:34] and you know who vets who oversees the<br>[25:37] whole thing, how that logistics work.<br>[25:39] You know, we'll get there one day. We'll<br>[25:42] get there. We're we're big. I think<br>[25:45] we're a good pipeline still in the age<br>[25:46] of AI to things. Um, but that said, you<br>[25:49] know, I uh I feel like educating folks<br>[25:54] about how to do the thing becomes that<br>[25:56] much different now in the age of AI<br>[25:58] because sure, we could watch the long<br>[26:00] form content and go through, you know, a<br>[26:03] series of an online course, but I also<br>[26:05] think about how much more expeditious we<br>[26:07] need to be about training AI because AI<br>[26:09] will take us to the very niche thing<br>[26:12] that we're like, I need to learn this<br>[26:13] skill now<br>[26:16] and I need to fix this thing right now<br>[26:17] and I feel like um ensuring timeliness<br>[26:20] on that delivery is going to be the key<br>[26:24] for making that really happen.<br>[26:27] >> Yeah. Yeah. I think that I'm I'm<br>[26:31] interested in the entry that WordPress<br>[26:35] has been uh leading towards with regards<br>[26:39] to integrating with AI. I'm interested<br>[26:42] in how it lands.<br>[26:44] >> Yeah. Um, specifically because I've been<br>[26:47] watching Drupal evolve that over the<br>[26:50] last probably two years and they I mean<br>[26:54] they literally have a two-year head<br>[26:55] start. Um, and and it evolved in<br>[26:59] WordPress from the comm the community<br>[27:01] the plug-in space uh before it came into<br>[27:04] core which honestly for the WordPress<br>[27:06] ecosystem kind of makes sense. Yeah.<br>[27:09] >> Um<br>[27:10] >> but that was like something that um like<br>[27:13] Dre uh Boyart has talked about how he<br>[27:16] and a lot of people have have parited<br>[27:18] this parad is probably a little bit<br>[27:20] derogatory have repeated this uh to say<br>[27:24] that um Drupal is uniquely capable of of<br>[27:29] integrating with AI. And when Dree says<br>[27:33] things like that, it makes me wonder, is<br>[27:36] it is that is that is that technically<br>[27:39] true? Is that is there a reason why<br>[27:41] that's technically is there a reason why<br>[27:43] Drupal is more uh like can can talk to<br>[27:48] AI better? Is it just because you had<br>[27:50] that two-year head start or there's<br>[27:52] something about how it's how it's<br>[27:53] structured? I do think like, you know, a<br>[27:55] lot of there's a lot more uh emphasis on<br>[27:57] structured data and I think that is<br>[27:59] probably what we're talking about, but I<br>[28:00] don't think that that's necessarily<br>[28:02] absent from WordPress.<br>[28:04] >> Um,<br>[28:05] >> yeah, I'm interested in in in the AI<br>[28:08] things uh in in the WordPress space. I'm<br>[28:10] I'm just I'm kind of just on the<br>[28:13] sidelines and and kind of just watching<br>[28:15] how it evolves.<br>[28:16] >> Yeah.<br>[28:18] Um, I have found uh recently wi with all<br>[28:22] the hats that we wear um uh and I have<br>[28:26] found particularly uh very recently um<br>[28:31] that there are many things that I need<br>[28:33] to be doing simultaneously.<br>[28:35] Um, and uh, with there being one of me<br>[28:40] and there being one of you,<br>[28:42] >> yeah,<br>[28:43] >> I have uh, I have started using AI to<br>[28:47] make some of that stuff faster.<br>[28:49] >> I know you've been playing with that for<br>[28:51] a while. Um, since we're kind of on the<br>[28:55] subject of AI, talk about like your<br>[28:58] relationship with with AI and what<br>[29:01] you're using it to help with and and how<br>[29:04] successful or unsuccessful those<br>[29:06] endeavors are.<br>[29:08] >> Not me over here with Claude also open<br>[29:12] during this thing and just hitting<br>[29:13] accept on a couple of issues.<br>[29:17] >> Uh, don't we all keep Claude running on<br>[29:19] the side all the time? So, I really got<br>[29:22] into using AI, well, first uh as a<br>[29:24] contributor to WordPress. So, the um<br>[29:28] videos that go on to<br>[29:30] learn.wordpress.org,<br>[29:32] we wanted to have everything captioned<br>[29:34] because prioritizing accessibility.<br>[29:38] If you've met me, you know that DEIB,<br>[29:41] including learning styles, as a former<br>[29:44] school teacher, I bring in like this<br>[29:45] awareness of learning styles and<br>[29:47] accessibility needs. And as a teacher, I<br>[29:49] was tasked with accommodating everybody<br>[29:51] and tracking things. So, I bring that<br>[29:55] into every area of life that I can. So,<br>[29:58] we were using um Otter.ai.<br>[30:01] >> And there was another one that we found<br>[30:04] really helpful when we were dealing and<br>[30:06] this was early also. Um Dcript was early<br>[30:09] too. So, Big Orange Heart um put out<br>[30:12] Wordfest events during the pandemic. Um,<br>[30:16] and for all of those things, we used AI<br>[30:19] transcription tooling. Otter AI is one<br>[30:22] that we used to upload the videos. I<br>[30:24] think the other one began with an S, but<br>[30:26] we found that that was better when you<br>[30:28] had somebody that was uh not from<br>[30:31] America, Great Britain, Scotland,<br>[30:34] Ireland, etc., and Australia. It did<br>[30:37] well at picking up those. But if I had<br>[30:40] for instance Hari Shankar I needed to<br>[30:42] Hari is a well-known uh former WordPress<br>[30:45] contributor.<br>[30:46] >> Hari's very much fluent in English but<br>[30:49] lives in the nation of India and these<br>[30:51] tools at the time have come a long way<br>[30:53] since then but at the time were not the<br>[30:54] best at particularly identifying his<br>[30:57] dialect. And so I used AI then for those<br>[30:59] those types of things. I moved on to<br>[31:02] using it inside of reviewing my news<br>[31:04] articles. So, I have a whole workflow<br>[31:07] where I I go through different sites<br>[31:09] every day. First thing when I open up<br>[31:11] and one of them is my RSS reader.<br>[31:13] Another one is YouTube and I'm looking<br>[31:15] for what's going on in the industry,<br>[31:17] brand mentions, etc. when I do that and<br>[31:20] I look at my YouTube subscriptions and<br>[31:21] then I have a smattering of other news<br>[31:23] sites and social places. Uh, Devril<br>[31:26] folks, we like dev.2 or daily.dev. There<br>[31:29] are a few of those kind of places that I<br>[31:31] check. Basically, I have a whole process<br>[31:34] of go figure out what content I want to<br>[31:36] keep notes about and then I automate it<br>[31:40] to go to my Read Wise account, which is<br>[31:42] a read it later service and I as part of<br>[31:45] that have an automation that creates<br>[31:47] notes in a template that I always want.<br>[31:49] I still manually go through the majority<br>[31:52] of what I send there and highlight<br>[31:54] things myself. The things that I<br>[31:56] highlight, I may also make personal<br>[31:58] notes on that area. that all<br>[32:00] synchronizes in a beautiful way to my<br>[32:02] Obsidian vault and then I publish it for<br>[32:04] other people to be like what's Courtney<br>[32:06] come across lately. Um I haven't shared<br>[32:08] that in a little while. So I do a lot of<br>[32:10] knowledge work with this if you're uh<br>[32:12] aware of Peter Ducker and the the<br>[32:14] concepts of what's a knowledge worker. I<br>[32:16] do a lot with AI for that. I use Dcript<br>[32:19] a good bit recently which is a video<br>[32:21] editing platform that does<br>[32:23] transcriptions. They give away a certain<br>[32:25] amount for free, but I can have it use<br>[32:27] AI to fix my eye contact. So, if I<br>[32:30] pre-record a video and I'm not looking<br>[32:33] directly into the camera, Dcript can fix<br>[32:36] where my eyes are looking or<br>[32:38] autocorrect. If I say, for instance,<br>[32:41] I've been making a lot of videos lately<br>[32:42] about one of GoDaddyy's new offerings,<br>[32:44] Arrow AI builder, and um it is a small<br>[32:48] business approach with vibe coding apps<br>[32:50] and websites. So, uh, how would small<br>[32:54] business owners use a tool? And so,<br>[32:56] we've customized something akin to<br>[32:58] lovable or replet, etc., but for a small<br>[33:02] business intended audience, not an<br>[33:03] engineering audience. So, in making<br>[33:05] those videos, I needed to pronounce the<br>[33:08] full name of the product. And I had only<br>[33:09] said arrow. A I O. And so, I used AI to<br>[33:13] go back and fix those<br>[33:15] >> pronunciations. But I also use it for<br>[33:17] coding a good bit. I use it for a lot of<br>[33:19] workflow automation. Um, I recently set<br>[33:22] up I like Alstio. If you're not really<br>[33:25] wanting to DevOps your own hosting and<br>[33:27] you really want to make use of like an<br>[33:28] AWS or something for some small side<br>[33:31] project type of things, I'm using Alstio<br>[33:34] for some of that. And I have it helping<br>[33:35] me. I used um Claude code to set up my<br>[33:41] open claw on Alstio and then connect my<br>[33:45] I use penpot which is a compete to<br>[33:47] Figma. Um, and I have active pieces,<br>[33:50] which is an open- source compete to Oh,<br>[33:53] pen pod is open source. Uh, active<br>[33:55] pieces is like um if or zapier and then<br>[34:00] um uh what's another one? I have a<br>[34:03] another instance where it's talking to n<br>[34:06] as well. Um so I can get claude code.<br>[34:10] Hey, I want this done. I've got other<br>[34:12] work to do. Go start doing those things<br>[34:14] on my hosted environment. don't do this<br>[34:17] on my local machine. Go to my hosted<br>[34:20] environment and do those things. And so,<br>[34:22] uh, it's happy to kind of get at it and<br>[34:24] do those. I vibe coded a couple of<br>[34:26] plugins. One was about WordPress post<br>[34:28] formats. One was about XFN, which is<br>[34:31] really old school internet protocol, but<br>[34:33] if you are interested in things like the<br>[34:35] indie web, like Fetverse and<br>[34:38] self-hosting, owning your content<br>[34:40] everywhere, I'm almost done with another<br>[34:42] plugin. So, I wouldn't have been able to<br>[34:43] do any of these as quickly as I am.<br>[34:45] almost done with another plugin. And<br>[34:47] when I do the plugins, I also include<br>[34:49] write the docs with some screenshots and<br>[34:52] host it in my GitHub repo because I'm<br>[34:54] not building out a business on these.<br>[34:55] These are things that I just wish<br>[34:56] WordPress would have inside of core like<br>[34:58] a proper post formats for all block<br>[35:01] themes or XFN. If you're in the<br>[35:03] Fedverse, it claims real equals me. And<br>[35:06] so AI came out with some really slick<br>[35:09] the XFN plugin that I did was a a pretty<br>[35:11] small simple one. Um, but the way that<br>[35:14] it came came out with how it connected<br>[35:16] things was really brilliant. And Matias,<br>[35:19] no, Matias Fefferly, who is behind the<br>[35:23] activity plug plug, the activity pub<br>[35:25] plugin,<br>[35:28] uh, really was excited about how that<br>[35:30] that was shared or integrated. Um, and<br>[35:34] picked up on some ideas to use then for<br>[35:37] what he's doing on activity pub. So, you<br>[35:39] know, what I can do with AI is pretty<br>[35:41] vast. I could do an entire workflow of<br>[35:43] plan my week out, review what I have in<br>[35:46] the things app. My to-do list is in my<br>[35:48] Things app. Look at here's my recipe<br>[35:50] vault. Here are my goals for the week.<br>[35:52] Here's D and AI. Can you help me like<br>[35:56] get a quick view of these things? Right.<br>[35:58] So, um yeah, I I I don't know what to do<br>[36:02] anymore. Not just if if the internet<br>[36:04] goes out, but now if my AI tool of<br>[36:06] choice goes out.<br>[36:08] >> Yeah. Right. It'll be it'll be like<br>[36:09] it'll be like when uh when AWS goes down<br>[36:12] and half of the internet goes dark for<br>[36:14] you know however long it lasts.<br>[36:16] >> Yeah.<br>[36:16] >> Um I<br>[36:19] >> So I've got I've got thoughts. Uh the<br>[36:22] the what you were talking descript uh<br>[36:24] changing your eye contact. Um, I<br>[36:26] recently, like just like this week, um,<br>[36:28] I was uh creating a graphic for a live<br>[36:31] stream that I'm doing and I have this<br>[36:33] picture of me um that I used uh that I<br>[36:37] was reusing and I I used it for a<br>[36:39] thumbnail that I did for like when I was<br>[36:41] in Drupal Con and it just me holding a<br>[36:43] microphone because I was like talking at<br>[36:44] our booth and um but I'm like looking<br>[36:47] off here and the camera's over there.<br>[36:49] Um, and it's a good picture. Um, I'm<br>[36:52] just kind of have a a neutral<br>[36:53] expression. And I I know that Photoshop<br>[36:56] uh has neural filters and I was looking<br>[36:59] through the neural filters uh because I<br>[37:01] was I was zooming way in. So I was<br>[37:02] already doing some like uh correction to<br>[37:04] make it like sharper. Um and I noticed<br>[37:06] that there was a thing that was like<br>[37:08] change like facial expression and eye<br>[37:11] contact and stuff like that. I'm like<br>[37:12] sure I'll click these t these buttons.<br>[37:15] And the result was so horrifying. Oh,<br>[37:19] >> it sort of like like my face sort of<br>[37:22] squashed. I kind of had like a<br>[37:24] >> like it was it was real bad. Um so like<br>[37:27] okay, nope. Big nope on that. Um so<br>[37:30] obviously these things like it would be<br>[37:32] great if I could like you know just kind<br>[37:33] of guide my eyes a little bit over<br>[37:35] there. Um<br>[37:37] >> so that that's just uh just funny. Um<br>[37:41] but uh so I you know have been dabbling<br>[37:45] with I mean I've been dabbling with AI<br>[37:46] for a long time uh outside of work<br>[37:48] things and I've been doing coding<br>[37:50] related things and like co-pilot and uh<br>[37:53] chatgbt and and um and stuff like that<br>[37:56] and using and also Gemini and like using<br>[37:58] different tools integrated into VS code.<br>[38:01] Um, but recently, so last month, uh,<br>[38:04] last month as we record this, uh, we had<br>[38:06] a hackathon at Pantheon. And my<br>[38:09] hackathon, the the project that I that I<br>[38:12] wrote, um, is a thing that I've wanted,<br>[38:16] uh, for a long time since I've been at<br>[38:17] Pantheon. Um, and it was made possible<br>[38:20] because back in like November, I think<br>[38:23] of last year, um, a bunch of Pantheon<br>[38:27] engineers kind of went, uh, into a room<br>[38:30] for a week and did a just a real quick<br>[38:33] sprint to make a public API exist, like<br>[38:37] fabricated out of nothing. Um,<br>[38:40] >> and for a long time, we've talked about<br>[38:42] this would be really cool, and I've<br>[38:44] wanted it for a lot of reasons. um<br>[38:46] particularly because you know you log<br>[38:49] into Pantheon and you have there's a<br>[38:51] Pantheon dashboard but as a WordPress<br>[38:53] user the only dashboard that I really<br>[38:55] care about is the WordPress dashboard<br>[38:57] and that's the thing that I go to and<br>[38:58] that's as a WordPress user that's what I<br>[39:00] interact with and there's a lot of<br>[39:01] things that I can get out of the<br>[39:02] Pantheon dashboard that I can only get<br>[39:04] at the Pantheon dashboard but as a<br>[39:06] WordPress user I don't want to have to<br>[39:07] log into two different things I want to<br>[39:09] pull as much stuff from that dashboard<br>[39:11] into WordPress and that would be<br>[39:13] possible if there is an API there wasn't<br>[39:15] an API Um, now there is an API. So I got<br>[39:18] to use for my hackathon project, I used<br>[39:20] claw code to build the plugin that I had<br>[39:23] dreamed about for four years.<br>[39:26] >> Same thing. Post formatted block themes.<br>[39:28] Yeah, that's complicated.<br>[39:30] >> In a week and it was like thousands of<br>[39:32] lines of code and multiple files and<br>[39:35] like um and it it did things like way<br>[39:39] faster than I could. It would have taken<br>[39:42] me months probably to to build that<br>[39:43] plugin. Mhm.<br>[39:44] >> Um even just to like there are certain<br>[39:46] things like there's one thing that I<br>[39:48] wanted it to be able to do which is um<br>[39:50] on a WordPress multi-sight uh when you<br>[39:53] hit add new site I wanted it to be able<br>[39:56] to make an API call through the API to<br>[39:59] Pantheon to add that domain to the<br>[40:01] domains list in Pantheon so that every<br>[40:03] subdomain automatically just gets a new<br>[40:05] domain on Pantheon so you don't have to<br>[40:07] do that manually. Um, and I thought, you<br>[40:10] know, it's going to take me, I don't<br>[40:12] know, maybe an hour or so to research<br>[40:14] where the hook is and figure out how to<br>[40:15] use it. And then it's going to take me<br>[40:17] time to actually do the code. And I<br>[40:18] asked, you know, can you do this thing?<br>[40:19] It's like, sure, I know where the hook<br>[40:21] is. And then it literally did it in like<br>[40:23] five minutes.<br>[40:23] >> Like this thing that would have taken<br>[40:25] me,<br>[40:26] >> you know, at least a day to like<br>[40:28] research and implement and test and do<br>[40:30] all the things. Like I just like I said,<br>[40:32] can you do the thing? And then I tested<br>[40:33] the thing work and the thing worked. And<br>[40:36] the research part that you bring up<br>[40:38] there is something that I find<br>[40:39] especially powerful. Um be it<br>[40:43] researching engineering related<br>[40:45] mindsets.<br>[40:46] >> Yeah,<br>[40:46] >> I can code. I can teach anyone to get up<br>[40:48] to being a junior dev. You don't want me<br>[40:50] being like a L4 L5 shipping on<br>[40:53] production. No. Um I am not that senior.<br>[40:57] I can get people up to being proficient<br>[40:59] to apply for jobs. That's where I'll<br>[41:01] I'll stake my claim. So, um, related to<br>[41:05] that type of of thing, I liked how<br>[41:08] during, uh, October, the month of<br>[41:10] October, Tammy Listister had the<br>[41:12] Blocktober website, which showed<br>[41:14] different ways to use, um, automatics<br>[41:16] TX, which is a way to prompt to create a<br>[41:19] block. And a block is essentially the<br>[41:22] code from that you could download. It's<br>[41:23] considered a plugin at that point. If<br>[41:25] you put a bunch of blocks in a plugin or<br>[41:26] you have just one block, it's still just<br>[41:28] a plugin. And so, um, Tammy was sharing<br>[41:32] some of the prompts that she was using<br>[41:33] for TX, but also she and Nick Hamy both<br>[41:37] are, uh, productminded folks. So they<br>[41:41] had put together uh individually some<br>[41:44] different types of Nick I especially<br>[41:46] recall on his site having a here is the<br>[41:49] kind of research that I have AI do about<br>[41:51] if these kind of blocks exist and what's<br>[41:53] going on in GitHub for Gutenberg<br>[41:57] specifically or elsewhere in the core<br>[41:59] project what are the gaps um and what<br>[42:01] are the needs that people might have to<br>[42:04] decide what type of blocks to build and<br>[42:06] I thought that was a fantastic way to<br>[42:08] sort of approach that is use it from the<br>[42:10] holistic. We're going to start back at<br>[42:12] the at the product owner kind of level<br>[42:16] or product manager type of level is<br>[42:19] another way to say it. Research all the<br>[42:21] things. What can I build? And now let's<br>[42:23] go do the thing. And so I applied some<br>[42:24] of those same types of ideas to building<br>[42:27] out the post formats area because we<br>[42:30] have a default theme now that does fully<br>[42:32] support it except that um it doesn't<br>[42:35] really call in for instance post formats<br>[42:38] are the thing that made WordPress a<br>[42:40] little bit Tumblr like uh back in the<br>[42:42] day and it was an interesting release.<br>[42:44] It reminds me that I think that was one<br>[42:46] of the first times it was like around 39<br>[42:48] or 40 somewhere. It's been around a<br>[42:51] while, but I recall writing the release<br>[42:53] posts on my personal blog back then.<br>[42:55] That was before I was even at the events<br>[42:57] calendar. And I look back now and and<br>[42:59] giggle because I'm now writing them on<br>[43:00] GoDaddyy's site. That's a little<br>[43:02] different. Um, but you know, how should<br>[43:05] I handle this behavior, that thing,<br>[43:07] these connections? And the latest one<br>[43:10] that I'm doing with um aiming it for the<br>[43:12] indie web audience involves piles and<br>[43:14] piles of APIs. And so one of the things<br>[43:17] in addition to just vibe coding these<br>[43:19] plugins is thinking about what are the<br>[43:21] security things I know about playright<br>[43:24] and end to end testing and justest and<br>[43:26] PHP unit testing and I know conceptually<br>[43:30] that this is what the engineers go and<br>[43:32] do. Have I ever done it thanks to AI?<br>[43:36] Yes. Uh, it's still AI going through<br>[43:39] those things, but coming back having me<br>[43:42] vibe coding a plugin and then at least<br>[43:44] coming back and saying, "Hey AI, I'm and<br>[43:46] I'm not releasing this as a paid thing<br>[43:48] for a business, but I feed AI. Here is<br>[43:51] what the plug-in checker plugin is doing<br>[43:54] on my site and saying here is what the<br>[43:57] query monitor does and I want you to run<br>[43:59] these set up and run these kind of tests<br>[44:02] for justest and unit tests and you know<br>[44:07] all of those things and tell me at the<br>[44:08] end what are the assertions. So<br>[44:10] engineers understand these terms quite a<br>[44:12] lot if you work in an environment with<br>[44:14] lots of other engineers. Um, and so AI<br>[44:18] has helped me level up a little bit more<br>[44:21] on the security side as well. And I<br>[44:24] think that we're going to see as things<br>[44:26] keep moving forward, people will keep<br>[44:27] trying to break everything because<br>[44:29] that's the fun of hacking sometimes and<br>[44:31] unethical folks will like to exploit<br>[44:33] where those hacks are. Um, but then at<br>[44:35] the same time, I think that AI is going<br>[44:37] to just keep getting a little smarter on<br>[44:39] the daily about like, hey, that's a<br>[44:42] great plugin. Would you like to do<br>[44:43] testing on it? and let's make sure that<br>[44:45] the code is quality especially when we<br>[44:46] begin to write it not at the end and<br>[44:49] those things and I do a lot of prompting<br>[44:51] too for prioritizing<br>[44:54] uh accessibility in my code work and<br>[44:57] then anything that's content driven is<br>[44:59] prioritizing all of that with the EIB<br>[45:02] inclusivity especially matters to me.<br>[45:04] >> Yeah.<br>[45:05] >> Yeah. Uh recently as we're talking about<br>[45:08] AI uh and this conversation reminds me<br>[45:11] of a conversation I had recently with<br>[45:12] Juliet Rainers Fulmer on the show<br>[45:15] >> uh and she has some very strong thoughts<br>[45:17] and feelings about AI. Um<br>[45:20] >> and uh among them I mean to sum up<br>[45:23] basically the gist is like because of<br>[45:26] how AI was trained and we can't go back<br>[45:29] and and reverse time and and maybe do it<br>[45:33] in a in a more thoughtful and ethical<br>[45:35] way because it was basically trained on<br>[45:36] the on the web. Um, so it it's here and<br>[45:41] because of that it's ingested just a<br>[45:44] whole bunch of stuff and particularly<br>[45:47] when we're talking about code. It's<br>[45:50] looking at open-source code from a<br>[45:54] variety of different places. It's<br>[45:56] looking at GitHub repositories. It's<br>[45:58] looking at, you know, whatever. It's<br>[45:59] looking at stuff on Stack Overflow. Um,<br>[46:02] and that code comes from different<br>[46:04] places and is often licensed under<br>[46:07] different open-source licenses.<br>[46:09] >> And not all open-source licenses are<br>[46:12] compatible with each other.<br>[46:13] >> Yes. and and the the risk for her and<br>[46:18] the thing that she has identified uh and<br>[46:20] I don't know that there's an answer for<br>[46:23] uh I'd love to hear your thoughts is<br>[46:25] that if we use AI to help us write code<br>[46:30] we have no real idea where the sources<br>[46:33] or origins of some of that code comes<br>[46:36] from and under what licenses that like<br>[46:39] you cannot say with certainty that the<br>[46:44] code did not come from something with a<br>[46:46] conflicting license.<br>[46:47] >> Absolutely agree. So Juliet is one smart<br>[46:51] lady and I am delighted that GoDaddy has<br>[46:55] taken up funding uh PHPCS which is the<br>[46:58] code sniffer or the coding standards for<br>[47:00] PHP. It's kind of this bridge between<br>[47:03] PHP the language and many other things<br>[47:06] that use it. One of them being WordPress<br>[47:08] but not exclusively. Juliet also does a<br>[47:11] lot of the work on WPCS which stands for<br>[47:13] WordPress code sniffer or WordPress<br>[47:15] coding standards and so engineers are<br>[47:17] very familiar with that intersection<br>[47:20] there. Um<br>[47:23] she knows the root of the language more<br>[47:26] proficiently than almost anybody else<br>[47:28] could or would and has a unique skill<br>[47:31] set for both of those areas that very<br>[47:34] few people in the world would know. um<br>[47:36] folks that are really really PHPdriven<br>[47:39] come along to support some of that work.<br>[47:41] That would be amazing because we don't<br>[47:43] want to ever have Juliet be the one<br>[47:45] maintainer of the thing. That said, um I<br>[47:50] think then you know the best that folks<br>[47:53] that are not at that skill level can do<br>[47:56] is to<br>[47:59] prompt in such a way that you're like<br>[48:01] look up this matters. look up every<br>[48:03] license that you're pulling this code<br>[48:05] from.<br>[48:05] >> Mhm.<br>[48:06] >> Make sure that the only exceptions that<br>[48:09] like that you tell me if something is if<br>[48:12] it's MIT or if it's GPL or what have<br>[48:14] you. And if you're unfamiliar with those<br>[48:16] things, a really great resource is<br>[48:18] opensource.org.<br>[48:19] Um that are that organization are the<br>[48:22] keepers of what defines open source.<br>[48:24] What does open source mean? Um, and they<br>[48:27] connect with lots of different<br>[48:28] organizations that are are in the open<br>[48:31] source sector and they're the keepers of<br>[48:33] like what are the different standards<br>[48:35] that you could use, what are the<br>[48:37] different kinds of open source<br>[48:38] foundations, etc. Um, and I think that<br>[48:41] it's wise to take what Juliet is saying<br>[48:44] and at least try to adapt it. Now, is it<br>[48:47] going to be as good as Juliet reviewing<br>[48:49] my code? No. Does Juliet want to review<br>[48:52] my code? Oh, no. Juliet has enough work<br>[48:56] to do on just PHPCS and WPCS and PHP<br>[49:00] things in general. Um, but I think that,<br>[49:03] you know, we can at least take some of<br>[49:05] those learnings and apply that into how<br>[49:07] we're coding.<br>[49:08] >> Yeah. Yeah. I I there's some interesting<br>[49:12] uh like my my suspicion because I've<br>[49:15] done research uh a thing that I realized<br>[49:18] early this year was that obviously in<br>[49:21] Devril in in being in representing our<br>[49:24] companies as developer advocates um AI<br>[49:27] is going to be a hot topic this year.<br>[49:30] >> I mean it's going to be a hot topic for<br>[49:32] a while but this year specifically<br>[49:34] particularly with uh how cloud code has<br>[49:36] suddenly like gotten like way more into<br>[49:39] the forefront. Um, I think that that's<br>[49:41] going to be uh a big thing. So, it I<br>[49:44] >> seemed important for me to do uh some<br>[49:48] some research. Um, and so I opened up a<br>[49:50] notebook LLM uh like you do uh in 2026.<br>[49:55] Um,<br>[49:56] >> and uh<br>[49:58] >> and now with notebook LLM, you can<br>[49:59] actually ask it to do research for you<br>[50:01] and it'll go out and find sources. So, I<br>[50:03] was interested I was thinking about this<br>[50:05] idea. I was also thinking about um uh my<br>[50:08] experience with cloud code. I was also<br>[50:10] thinking about and now I'm I'm thinking<br>[50:12] about like the the Mattplot lib uh<br>[50:16] author a maintainer who was um basically<br>[50:20] harassed by an openclaw bot uh for not<br>[50:22] accepting that pull request. thinking<br>[50:24] about that in context and so<br>[50:26] >> and also how curl had to shutter their<br>[50:29] hacker one which is a bug bounty program<br>[50:33] that if you find an exploit<br>[50:35] curl is lowercase c the rest uppercase<br>[50:39] URL and that's really important um in<br>[50:43] WordPress we saw when zip files couldn't<br>[50:46] be uploaded<br>[50:47] >> that was related to curl on some hosting<br>[50:50] environments so it's another layer in<br>[50:52] the stack of like you got your WordPress<br>[50:54] install and under the hood of WordPress<br>[50:55] we're calling for a million different<br>[50:57] other open source projects and layers.<br>[50:59] Yeah.<br>[50:59] >> Um which is fascinating to study and to<br>[51:01] look at.<br>[51:03] >> But that one thing Yeah. Exactly. It's<br>[51:05] like the maintainers are getting<br>[51:07] overwhelmed.<br>[51:09] So, so the thing that I was I was<br>[51:10] looking at and the thing that the point<br>[51:12] I was I was I was meandering toward uh<br>[51:15] is like I suspect based on some court<br>[51:19] cases that are now starting to come out<br>[51:22] related to uh AI like either images that<br>[51:26] were created by AI and whether or not<br>[51:28] they're copyrightable or code or<br>[51:30] whatever that I I feel like the law is<br>[51:32] probably going to fall on the side of<br>[51:35] well we can't identify it so it's just<br>[51:38] not it's the license doesn't apply. It's<br>[51:41] I I feel like that's probably where the<br>[51:43] courts will settle and I don't know that<br>[51:45] that's necessarily a satisfactory uh<br>[51:47] solution for the world of open source<br>[51:49] and the world for contribution. uh<br>[51:51] particularly as<br>[51:53] >> like<br>[51:54] >> AI can just say, "Oh, I'm going to pull<br>[51:55] in this library and I and and like a<br>[51:59] thing that I've been thinking about<br>[52:00] recently is like there's an increasing<br>[52:01] gap between like because of AI, your<br>[52:04] knowledge as a as a developer um between<br>[52:09] you and the maintainer of the things<br>[52:12] that you're using to build your code."<br>[52:14] >> Um and because AI can is creating a<br>[52:16] barrier where like it's doing that<br>[52:19] research for you. So you as a as a<br>[52:20] developer, as a as a vibe coder,<br>[52:22] whatever, are just getting the product<br>[52:24] of like these other people's work, but<br>[52:26] you don't even know that these other<br>[52:27] people have been involved in the project<br>[52:28] that you're now building, right? Um,<br>[52:31] >> so that's that's a thing. Um, but I feel<br>[52:34] like I feel like a lot will probably<br>[52:36] just be like, "Yeah, but you know,<br>[52:37] whatever." Like,<br>[52:39] >> yeah.<br>[52:39] >> Yeah.<br>[52:40] >> One of the next uses that I have for AI<br>[52:43] is uh another hat that you and I both<br>[52:45] wear. We wear a couple of overlapping<br>[52:47] hats. Uh so we are both on the board for<br>[52:50] the WPCCdeed<br>[52:52] >> as well as both contributing to fair and<br>[52:54] fair. PM has a release coming out soon<br>[52:58] and you're going to provide me with the<br>[52:59] change logs. This is actually something<br>[53:01] I've started doing.<br>[53:02] >> I was wondering if you're going to use<br>[53:03] AI to help you build out this<br>[53:05] >> release. I'm going to so I'm going to<br>[53:07] take the change log and then ask it you<br>[53:09] know what goes into a really amazing<br>[53:11] release post. Give it some nudging and<br>[53:14] then let it start that process. And here<br>[53:16] is where I will say I am absolutely<br>[53:18] going to go back and look at every<br>[53:21] GitHub issue that that corresponds to.<br>[53:23] Right?<br>[53:23] >> This is part of what you do when you are<br>[53:25] prepping for a release is like<br>[53:27] >> assessing what are all the issues that I<br>[53:30] actually go back and read a lot of those<br>[53:33] in in the WordPress sector. I read a lot<br>[53:35] of the Gutenberg issues in GitHub<br>[53:37] directly so that I really get a deep<br>[53:40] understanding of how do we get here and<br>[53:41] what does that mean? And so um I'm not<br>[53:45] as much interacting on those issues as<br>[53:47] just like I need to read and understand<br>[53:49] so that I can explain it in a simple way<br>[53:51] to other people. And so AI will<br>[53:54] >> sometimes need AI to explain things<br>[53:56] sometimes I need AI to explain things in<br>[53:58] a simple way to me.<br>[54:00] >> Yeah.<br>[54:01] >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It's like what was<br>[54:05] in that engineer's head? when I earlier<br>[54:07] referenced Scott, Steven, and Gustavo,<br>[54:10] uh, we didn't have AI available then and<br>[54:12] I that's wherein all of the human<br>[54:15] awkwardness just kind of dissipates now<br>[54:17] because I can be like, AI, help me with<br>[54:19] the thing that I feel stuck about. And<br>[54:20] it's like, well, why do you feel stuck?<br>[54:22] And then I'll be like blah blah blah.<br>[54:24] And it says, okay, here is perhaps even<br>[54:26] a script of what to ask somebody<br>[54:28] >> or uh helpful. I've I I don't get into a<br>[54:31] lot of medical conversations with AI,<br>[54:33] but I did want to use it to open a like<br>[54:36] I I had an initial ask for my doctors<br>[54:40] and I tend to just info dump.<br>[54:43] >> Mhm.<br>[54:43] >> And then let it clean it up in a way<br>[54:46] that's logical for other people to<br>[54:48] understand. And it was good with that.<br>[54:50] Right. This isn't it wasn't a major<br>[54:52] medical issue. It wasn't revealing too<br>[54:54] much personal data. It was just saying<br>[54:56] like, "Hey, I've got a a set of<br>[54:58] questions I need to ask the doctor and<br>[54:59] so help me put it in a way that makes<br>[55:02] sense."<br>[55:03] >> Yeah.<br>[55:05] >> Well, thank you, Courtney, for coming on<br>[55:06] again.<br>[55:07] >> Absolutely.<br>[55:07] >> Uh, and uh, where can people find you on<br>[55:12] the internet?<br>[55:13] >> Yeah. So, the best place for me to<br>[55:15] direct people if you're watching the<br>[55:16] video is courtney r.dev. I am pointing<br>[55:19] at it. Uh, all of the links to my social<br>[55:21] profiles and other things can be found<br>[55:23] there. You can find me as Courtney R_DEV<br>[55:28] or Courtney Rheendev on most platforms<br>[55:31] too.<br>[55:33] >> Awesome. Uh well, again, thanks for<br>[55:35] thanks for coming on, Courtney. Uh and<br>[55:38] thank everyone who may be watching or<br>[55:40] listening to this in the future. Uh and<br>[55:42] we'll see you all on the internet.<br>[55:45] >> Bye all.<br>[55:49] Yeah.<br>[55:52] Heat.
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## Highlights
- Claiming all developers resist traditional marketing based on DevRel community consensus - needs broader data support
- Note: ๐ Fallacy: Hasty Generalization #fallacy/hasty-generalization
- Referencing Juliet Randers-Fulmer's expertise without fully exploring counterarguments to licensing concerns
- Note: ๐ Fallacy: Appeal to Authority #fallacy/appeal-to-authority