Interview with Aaron Holbrook

What inspired or motivated you to give this talk at WordCamp?

I’ve found that there is still a lot of interest from people in learning about things that I’ve worked on and refined through the course of my professional career.

Things like: where to place your code, how to use an IDE and debugger, building and utilizing a deployment system and ways to make your code much simpler and easier to understand and maintain.

I love the feeling of helping someone from sharing something I know; it’s such a powerful and intense feeling, seeing their eyes light up and their excitement at seeing a new way of doing something! All from just sharing some information – it’s so amazing.

Do you have any advice or words of encouragement for those who are thinking about getting involved in the WordPress community?

Do it! Just start – there is no prerequisite other than an earnest desire to help others.

There is no secret club, there are no secret handshakes. There is just doing good for others and meeting other people that do the same. The networking and friendships I have made by volunteering and contributing are powerful and have contributed to my personal and professional growth.

If you could make one improvement to WordPress today, what would it be?

I would love to have an easier/more integrated way to publish and update plugins via GitHub.

Using SVN and the entire process for publishing a plugin makes things extremely cumbersome and is a huge barrier to entry for people looking to publish their first plugin.

Who do you most admire and why?

I admire Steve Zehngut and Chris Lema greatly. They are both very intelligent and savvy businessmen.

Steve is very good at understanding people and situations. I continue to learn from him better ways to approach and handle situations.

Chris is a thought-provoking and forward thinking individual who has a very solid understanding of the current landscape, where it’s headed and what opportunities exist.

I greatly respect and admire them both.

What’s your favorite quote from a book or movie?

“Ship like this, will be with you till the day you die.”
– Firefly

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

WordCamp Minneapolis/St. Paul is over. Check out the next edition!