Interview with Gary Kovar

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

I’ve had situations in my professional career where I’ve found myself muttering, “I can’t believe I’m about to do this.” We all know that cowboy coding is wrong, but sometimes external conditions dictate that we as devs must do something irresponsible or stupid. Since we all do it (and don’t admit to it) I want to share some ideas I’ve had to at least “be dumb” in a safe way. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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

Read blog posts, try things, jump in with reckless abandon, and struggle until you reach a dead end. At that point, ask for help and listen.

Know that your knowledge is where someone else wants to be. Happily answer questions. If someone is willing to be vulnerable with you; ask you specifically for help (which is a position of submission)…they trust you. Respect and honor that trust.

Thinking and talking about fundamentals is always a good investment.

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

WordPress needs to not bill itself as easy. The concepts of a CMS are “easy” if you’ve struggled with creating a site from scratch and pondered content types, and how to add new content, and categorizing, and SEO, and commenting, and site maps, and feeds, and data structure, and coding standards, and, and, and… However, many users are dipping their toe in the web-water with WordPress and finding that it’s not easy.

Who do you most admire and why?

Dang…this is a good question.

I admire tons of people for a myriad of reasons and have false-started answering this question a half dozen times.

I admire anyone that is able to find peace with who they are.

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

“It could be worse” – Princess Leia Organa: Star Wars IV – A New Hope

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