Kingpin An interview with Tom McFarlin

Q1: Tell us about your history, and what was the first time you became involved with WordPress?

It's a bit of a long answer, actually.

My first interest in computers at the age of 10-years-old. There was one Apple IIe when I was quite young, however I was too young to be able to fully engage in the subject. When we finally got our first PC (it came with a model 386 equipped with 4MB of RAM) that had Wolfenstein as well as Doom in it. When I first played the two titles, I fell in love with them.

Like many kids my age I was interested in video games and enjoyed a myriad of games like Star Wars: Dark Forces, Doom, Doom II, Wolfenstein, and King's Quest (the sixth installment is the best, inarguably so :).

When it comes to the Internet was involved, my initial experience with "getting connected" was through Prodigy with an 14.4 millisecond modem. However, there's more to come in the next few minutes.

The more I worked with the machine, though, the more I became interested in the images I saw on screen. Specifically, how was what happening inside the beige box being shown on the screen? In addition what was the response to inputs from mouse and keyboard?

Then, I'd be able to learn more about disks, memory (and page problems) interrupts, disks, the like. It's about 10 years later.

Anyway, around that time, I was spending a lot of time online on America Online and stumbled across a forum specifically designed for computer programmer (of which I was not yet, however I was definitely interested).

This ended up leading me towards C (specifically specifically the Borland CC+plus compiler) to which I was horribly under-prepared and also the different Linux distributions. Linux (my first taste of it being Slackware as well as Red Hat, but I am going to digress).

In the end, since C was too complicated to comprehend in the moment I discovered Visual Basic which seemed to be more in my style (at just 10 years old I think at the minimum).

Thus, I purchased the version of Visual Basic 3.0 (which spanned on nine disks of floppy) and began experimenting in writing software. I finally made it up to Visual Basic 5.0 and used two more books, all of which were generously bought by my parents.

I was thoroughly intrigued and wanted to learn more about in this area and, as it was my concern was what I wanted to do for a career.

Then, I moved on to high school and junior high and on to college. In college, I took a course in computing science and specialized in software engineering during my college.

As I attended school, the College of Computing at the university was looking for some students who would write regularly about their experiences at the school. This consisted of writing about how it was to learn the subject and participate in activities for students as well as general discussion about what it was like to be students at college.

It was a way to showcase student life for the school, but I was not averse to it.

Oh! I graduated from college with a bachelor's degree in the field of computer science. This is something I'd wanted to do since we first acquired our 386. So achievement unlocked or whatever else you want to call it.

Apart from a brief period in high school where I was seriously considering starting a band and doing it professionally, I've always decided what I would like to accomplish, pursued it, and made a career from it, and continue to work in the industry.

All of which do I think of as a necessity.

Q2: What are the most important things that readers should be aware of about the various things you're working on in WordPress today?

In the present, I'm involved in some things on WordPress each of which I'm using to make a living and to help the general WordPress economy in some way.

In no particular order:

• Blogging at least three times a week (and striving for at minimum one post that is specific to members per week) at tommcfarlin.com.
• Converting certain membership-related content into an eBook.
• Building a suite of plugins specifically for bloggers.
• Making custom solutions for small businesses and individuals that usually entail connecting third-party APIs to WordPress and having the two systems communicate with each other to address a specific problem for a business.
• Running Pressware.

Much as I like creating and publishing content, as well as helping other people find ways to make it easier and much more quickly, I've observed that a lot of people are beginning to look for third-party integrations using plugins. This is an area I'm enjoying immensely.

There is an increasing demand to use WordPress in that capacity which is a lot of fun exploring the possibilities of the REST API, communicating via other APIs as well as creating systems around it.

Q3: What obstacles faced you before you reached where you currently are professionally?

While I love doing what I'm doing as well as the clients with whom I work, there definitely are challenges that have come my way (and it's likely that there will always be).

I've yet to read an instance where someone had been working in an industry where this wasn't the case. A few of these problems are at the business-level, some are on the WordPress level.

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I make an effort to pay attention to the discussion around it even when I'm not participating in it, and then I'm aware that a feature or set of APIs exists in case I'm in need of them. I've found that I'm the most efficient when I am learning them as I need them instead of purchasing them, and potentially never using them.

Also, with a focus on business There have been several instances when I've made errors with something I've posted or stated or in the way I've managed projects. This isn't a pleasant experience, naturally, nevertheless, I do everything I can to try to have the necessary conversations to understand a specific circumstance, then take the lessons learned and apply them as I progress.

Last but not least, one of the biggest challenges I've had to face in this industry is making sure I'm current and relevant on the subjects that are most important to what I view as my main set of capabilities.

For example, because WordPress has a focus on compatibility with backwards versions - and with good reason in my opinion It's simple to become used to older methods to write code, or even less modern software. Thus, new tools are implemented that actually simplify our lives and that make writing code pleasant, but we end up not adopting them because we feel that we don't need to do so.

It's the "if it's not broken do not repair it" mentality. But that's what the proper attitude is, since it's not a matter of whether something is damaged or is it not. It's about "if there's something that you could polish, why not take time to finish it?" The implication is that you've got the sufficient time and energy to complete the task isn't it? You get my point.

This is how I envision taking things such as package managers and new features for languages, and so on. It's not fixing something but polishing, enhancing - something.

Q4: Has anything surprised you while coming up in the WordPress world?

In the majority of cases the majority of the time, it's not.

If I could pick something that has exceeded my expectations at first I'd say customization has advanced. When it first came out I was awed by it. It was intuitive, simple, easy-to-use, and pleasure against to write code against.

It's now grown to have a major feature. It's almost like a small piece of software within an additional piece of software. Like WordPress in WordPress (a humorous joke that is tongue-in-cheek, for those who may not be able to speak English as their first or only.

If that's a good thing is a matter of debate, and I don't indeed have a solid position. But I'd say that it did surprise me just how far capabilities of this attribute have been pushed.

But I'm aware that there's plenty of debate about the new features, or things that could be a little overwhelming initially, especially if there's some type of radical shift in the way it's executed.

In speaking to family members who are entrepreneurs, as well as family friends both in this industry and in their own respective sectors, I've yet discover a sector that does not face things that don't seem completely overwhelming initially.

Some may feel like the basis of their know is changing. Perhaps it's so. It could be hyperbole.

However, the clichés "change will occur" or "the only permanent thing is changing" are a common thought. Be prepared for it and if it does happen you shouldn't be caught off guard.

Q5: What will the future hold for you and the WordPress world?

I don't do a lot of the "in 10 years I want to have at [this] point." In the most cases I'll project three years, but I do my best to focus on things like one year, one quarter, one month, one week, and one day at a time (and my schedule, as well as Things, reflect this).

The next year I want to:

• We will continue to work with clients that are looking to integrate systems from third parties or create custom plugins for their needs.
• Complete the book I've begun.
• Keep growing the number of members of my blog.
• Begin building out Blogging Plugins (which will take a lot more time than expected).

I tend to forecast often more than I'd like per year, so I'm trying to cut back by a bit each year until I can strike the perfect level of balance.

Q6: What do you consider when choosing an WordPress host?

From a general perspective From a general perspective, I usually focus on the things that most people would. In this case, it's examples of:

• The Uptime
• Security
• Backups
• Subdomains and add-on domains
• HTTPS

More advanced functions I particularly like those that are designed for developers, such as

• The ability to quickly spin the stage.
• Work with tools on the command line.
• Select data centers and caching methods to provide a great experience for end users.

Q7: What activities do you do when you're not from your computer?

It's likely that you'll see me hanging out with my kids, playing the guitar, exercising or playing video games, watching TV or movies or just reading.

Q8: Whom should be next interviewed and why?

I'd suggest interviewing Carl Alexander. He's an incredibly talented developer who's a prolific speaker at WordCamps across North America.

He's extremely active within the WordPress community and is extremely skilled with object-oriented programming, and aims to educate others on these concepts through his blog.

If you're looking to get better at writing objects-oriented code within the framework of WordPress and you're not taking note of what the author is publishing If you're not, then you're missing out.

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