Aurooba Ahmed and Brian Coords are back to talk to Cory and Phil about their new podcast, viewSource—well, new as of January 2023. We talk about why they started it, who it’s for, and why we keep putting ourselves out there.
Clips
Links
(03:02) viewSource.fm: https://viewsource.fm
(29:00) thedaily5.xyz: https://thedaily5.xyz/
(35:07) WPEngine DE{CODE} 2023: https://events.wpengine.com/event/b1c1e30f-2c73-4abb-a609-52afaed68717/
(44:58) 2015 State of the Word: https://us.wordcamp.org/2015/state-of-the-word-2015/
(57:14) Brian’s WordCamp Phoenix 2023 session: https://phoenix.wordcamp.org/2023/session/migrating-your-workflow-from-acf-flexible-content-to-acf-blocks/
(1:02:23) Super List Block plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/superlist-block/
(1:06:38) Safe SVG plugin adds a block (GitHub issue): https://github.com/10up/safe-svg/issues/21
Transcript
Cory (00:00:15): Welcome back to In The Loop, a WordPress Agency podcast by Blackbird Digital. I'm Cory Hughart, and in this episode, Aurooba Ahmed and Brian Coords are back to talk to Phil Hoyt and me about their new podcast, viewSource—well, new as of January 2023. We talk about why they started it, who it's for, and why we keep putting ourselves out there. If you have questions about WordPress website development, contributing, or anything else web-related that you'd like to hear us discuss, send an email to [email protected]. You can also find us on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok as InTheLoop_WP. Blackbird Digital is a web and app development agency that specializes in WordPress, creating onscreen experiences that connect, teach, communicate, and inspire. Visit blackbird.digital for more information. Enjoy the show. Cory (00:01:07): Welcome back to another episode of In The Loop, and it is a special In The Loop reunion today because with us as always, Phil Hoyt, Phil (00:01:26): Hey. Cory (00:01:27): But also we have back with us today, not just one guest, but two. First in alphabetical order, Aurooba Ahmed and Brian Coords. So we've had both of these folks on the show last year, Aurooba in episode 16, and Brian in episode 21. And we brought them both back together because they've both started podcasting since we last spoke. So I figured why not get back together and talk a little—how did you say it, Phil? Inside baseball? Phil (00:02:08): This episode's very meta, you know, it's a podcast about podcasting, so. Cory (00:02:12): A little bit. Yeah. Phil (00:02:13): You know, for all sports people: inside baseball. Cory (00:02:16): So I wanted to get us all back together and talk a little bit—yeah a little meta about podcasting—but a little bit about, you know, WordPress of course, cuz that's, that's what it all comes back down to, of course. So how are you folks doing? ... Yeah? <Laugh>. Phil (00:02:35): Yeah. Aurooba (00:02:35): Pretty good! Cory (00:02:38): That's what I like to hear. No. All right. So let's, let's ask a serious question here. So the podcast, I will let one of you explain what it is and where you can find it. So I'll pick someone because this is harder to do with more than <laugh> one person. So, Aurooba, tell me what the podcast name is and, and what it's about. Aurooba (00:03:01): <Laugh> The podcast is called viewSource and it's this weekly conversation that Brian and I have right now, mostly about WordPress and the tech that surrounds WordPress. And a lot of the times we do a show & tell. Cory (00:03:17): Anything to add to that Brian? Brian (00:03:19): Yeah, I mean, if I'm being perfectly honest, it's, it's all just a plot for me to get Aurooba to teach me things that she's much smarter at. So, you know, I had to pretend that it's a podcast just to get her to explain these things to me. Phil (00:03:35): Some one-on-one mentoring. Brian (00:03:36): Exactly. And it's working out really well for me. <Laugh>, Brian (00:03:41): Actually, I'm not sure how that's working for her, but I feel like I'm learning. Aurooba (00:03:45): I am learning lots too, it's lots of fun. Cory (00:03:48): I mean, I guess that's, that's one of the, that's one of the things that I wanted to talk about today, about podcasting and why we're all doing it. And a lot of it comes back, to me personally, to this idea of learning out loud. And it feels very like open source ethos kind of, you know not just putting stuff out that you make that other people can use and build on, but, you know it's less of that like, you know, working quietly and then pushing something out and more like, "we're in the middle of it, we're having a conversation, come join us", kind of thing. Right. Brian (00:04:35): Yeah, we were talking about that sort of experience earlier of just like, that's the WordPress way, which is somebody learned it in public, they blogged about it, they, you know, did a tutorial about it. They made some documentation for it, and like, that's how I learned, that's how everyone learned. And so it feels like that's just, you know, for some of us that's kind of the way you get engaged with the community is is that kind of like you said, learning in public. Phil (00:05:03): Yeah, it's a very vulnerable, oh, sorry. Yeah, it's just a very vulnerable place to be cuz you're kind of opening yourself up to being wrong. I mean, I think this podcast that we put on is very similar. We have a lot of opinions and a lot of just things that we're saying. And I would say over the years, you look back, listen to the old episodes and you're like, "wow, that has changed so much from when we were [postulating] if we were ever going to use the block editor" to our conversations that we have nowadays. So, which are a lot more in-depth. Aurooba (00:05:31): Yeah. I think that one of the things that is really cool about learning out loud or learning in public is the conversations you end up having because of it. Not with people. Like obviously Brian and I have this podcast, you two have this podcast and you also have people you bring over. But then when other people listen to it and the things that they say and the engagement with that, that happens on social media or sometimes in email or private dms, I think that's like, that extra like enriching really cool part that we forget about but is so valuable, like for everyone involved, but especially for the ones who are like actually engaging and who you're engaging with. I love that part a lot. Cory (00:06:11): Especially valuable for me, <laugh>. We were just, we were just talking before we pressed the record button about how I've never been to an in-person WordCamp <laugh> Aurooba (00:06:23): Crazy. Cory (00:06:25): And, you know, part of that of course is, you know, I've attended some, some virtual ones over the past couple of years and that's been really great. But yeah before this not a lot of direct conversation with folks. And you know, to be honest, I was really nervous about the podcasting thing. I was kind of roped into it at first, that first episode I was not running it, and the, the whole first season, which is whatever an extension of that first episode, I wasn't necessarily running it either. But now here we are, one whole season under the, under the belt and it's going alright so far. So here's, here's season three for you. But, but yeah, no, the, the talking to people part directly of course, with you folks and also trying to engage in this community of people, there's so many of them out there, that are at different levels and most of them I expect are way smarter than me and know what they're doing and are actually like, contributing like quote unquote real code, right, to WordPress or all those sorts of things. And it's been very, very eye-opening for me personally to just jump in and have conversations regardless of my comfort level. And it's thanks to folks like you that have come on and, you know, just, let's just chat. Let's have a conversation. Let's talk about what we're working on and encourage each other to learn stuff. Right. That's, that's what I've been getting out of this anyways, so yeah, I wanna ask, how did you two decide to start a podcast together? Like, how did that even come to be in general? Brian (00:08:19): I think it was my idea, but I could, I could really be like retconning this history, but I feel like it was my idea that we should, but we, I think what the podcast is where we look at like a specific idea or piece of code or something was a thing we were already doing. We were working together on projects and we were kind of having these discussions and I think like everybody, you have that thought in your brain where you're like, you know, 'I should have a podcast' or I should you know, do this. So I, I think I proposed it as an idea first. But it was really just, you know, originally was like, what if it was just, you know, short five, like 10 to 15 minutes once a week on something WordPress-related. And then as we started digging into it, we learned that we can't talk for 10 to 15 minutes on any one topic. It just doesn't happen. And you know, yeah, every episode is like, we get a certain number in and we're like, this is clearly two episodes, this is three episodes. So yeah, it's definitely grown from there. But if I remember it was like, I think we both had in our minds like, it would be great to have a WordPress podcast, but I need somebody to have a conversation with. And then it was like the first time it felt like, oh, this is, this is that conversation. Aurooba (00:09:38): Yeah. I mean, I've had a solo podcast before and I really wanted to do another podcast, but I didn't want it to be alone. And it was kind of like this serendipitous moment where Brian was like, "Hey, I have this really crazy cool idea. Please feel free to say no, but what if we did this?" And I was like, it was pretty much an instant yes on my end because it was like, I wanna do this. Here's a person who also wants to do this, who I already have really cool conversations with and enjoy talking to. So let's just do it. Cory (00:10:08): <Laugh>. So part of, you know, part of what we do with this podcast is yeah, we do have conversation just occasionally just between the two of us to, you know, just talk really vaguely about a whole bunch of different topics that are just on our mind, right? And then you know, and then we schedule these interviews like this where we talk to people and generally speaking, those people come with certain projects or things that they wanna talk about or whatever. So for your podcast, right, it's just the two of you, there's no interviewing part, there's just you two talking about very, you know, specific topics. It's very focused, unlike this <laugh>. So how do you you know, how do you choose those topics? Or is it really easy at the moment and, and do you think that that might get harder over time? Or will there be an endless amount of specific topics to focus on? Aurooba (00:11:07): Yeah, so when we first started the podcast, we started this brainstorming board where we just wrote down every single idea we thought of or things that we wanna discuss. And then whenever we would have calls and we would end up on these like long conversations about weird granular things we're like, this is a podcast episode. Oh my God. And then that would go into the list as well. And yeah, eventually we would then look at that list and think, okay, what is actually interesting? What is the thing that we actually wanna talk about? And we're both very tech focused, very, you know, like to dive into the details of things. So it just sort of emerged as this sort of, let's do this show and tell where we really go deep on this one tiny little topic. Because if we try to do anything bigger than that, it will be a seven and a half hour long billion conversation and will never end. You know, so we were forced by our inability to keep things concise, to go really focused. <laugh> Cory (00:12:05): <laugh> That's fair. Brian (00:12:06): Yeah. And I think we find like those bigger meta conversations come out of those, you know, you're looking at one thing, one line of code on a block or something, and then you end up having the conversation about why does this package not have good documentation? Or why is this the thing that I'm waiting for not in core and stuff. So like those, all those conversations come out of it. But we have to like have something to anchor us back to cuz otherwise we'll just go on forever. Cory (00:12:34): Yeah. Phil (00:12:35): <Laugh>, I would imagine being weekly allows you to cover more topics quickly, I would assume. Which maybe gets a lot of those ideas outta your head faster. We have, we only do our dev chats maybe every like three months or so. So sometimes we have, those episodes tend to be quite long and maybe a little meandery cuz our topics you know, like, oh, I have so many things that we've saved up for the last three months and we're trying to get it all out in an hour. So I imagine you're able to kind of spitfire those a lot quicker. Cory (00:13:07): So I suppose in a way that that helps with what do you call it? Being, you know, being topical, being on point with conversations that might be happening in the broader community. You find that that's the case. Are you, you know, working through a backlog right now of just specific topics you just, you wanna do? Brian (00:13:28): Yeah. Well, <laugh> we were, we were a few weeks ahead, <laugh> mm-hmm. <Affirmative> on our backlog and then we've gotten a little behind, so ours are coming out a little more topical. But we would much rather have that backlog. But yeah, I mean, I think even just big picture, there's so much change in WordPress right now for all of us that are in like that agency theme building kind of space. So there's really no shortage of things that, like me personally, I could spend more time learning about or debating or discussing or really wrapping my head around how, you know, what we call like modern WordPress is gonna work. So there's, I feel like there's at least a year, you know, of weekly episodes just coming to terms with like what WordPress is gonna look like for all of us, like theme developers going forward. And like you said, if you, if you waited every, like we, I'm sure you guys have so many things you could dig into if you're waiting every three months for that kind of a conversation. At least on tape. Yeah. Aurooba (00:14:31): <Laugh>. I also think that there's just so much going on right now. So much is in flux that there's no such thing as like just something topical right now. It's all topical, especially in the world of developers. There's just so much to talk about. I am not even a little bit worried that what we're talking about right now is, you know, if we were recording ahead of time would not be, you know, relevant to when we actually posted it. It will still be relevant. There's just too much happening for that to even be a concern right now. You know, cuz we're not talk- we're not covering like events, you know, or event-driven timeline-related things. This is all like developer stuff and there's always someone at some stage of their journey who's gonna find what we have to say useful about whatever we're talking about from a code perspective. Cory (00:15:18): Yeah. Sometimes I wonder you know, I mean there's right, there's different, there's different niches to fill, but, you know, the focus on technical topics, it's probably gonna help certain people on a journey of WordPress development to, you know, finding your podcast and going through it and learning a lot of things. For In The Loop I feel it's a little different. I feel we're we're talking about the things that interest us at the time, obviously certainly not diving into anything technically in terms of not getting anywhere close to some sort of like tutorial or like, "this is how you do a thing". Of course. So it's at least nice to see that there's different, you know, we can have lots of WordPress podcasts, right? There's plenty of them out there. But each of them have their own kind of focus. There are certainly others that are, like you said, focused more on those, you know, "current events" kind of things. And that's not quite, eh, I dunno, <laugh> Phil (00:16:24): I like to think of our podcast as like we're trying to find peers and peer talk a little bit and talk, and I think what's interesting what your podcast is that you do have that visual component and you're not afraid to kind of like talk about the very specifics of how things get done. So, I guess could you talk a little bit about like, you had the decision to be visual on what is often an audio medium? Aurooba (00:16:47): I always thought, I think I was the one who was like, we should definitely do a video podcast as well. Right Brian? Brian (00:16:53): Yeah. I didn't know you could listen to podcasts on YouTube. I was not aware that that's a thing people do, but apparently it's like a large percentage of people only use YouTube to get even just their audio. So yeah, that was news to me. Phil (00:17:07): <Laugh>, I think I had read somewhere that like the percentage of people who use YouTube, not even YouTube music as like their main like music player was like pretty large cuz like lots of 'em are listening to like soundtracks and they're just listening to it all the way through. And I just like- Cory (00:17:22): Lots of live channels that are just playing stuff constantly. Yeah, yeah, Phil (00:17:27): Sure. Cory (00:17:28): I like it. Aurooba (00:17:28): Which I use a lot. And I listen to or watch I guess a lot of video podcasts because I love that I can watch it on my tv but also be in the kitchen doing things and be listening to it. So it's like one of the ways that I consume a lot of my audio content, I guess. Yeah. So it makes sense for me to be on YouTube. And I just think that there is something cool about video. I think it's a lot more work for sure. We've definitely seen that and experienced it Phil (00:18:07): Yeah. So I'm guessing you're on all the pod catchers of course, also, so you have like the audio component and then you have the visual components on YouTube. That's something we don't have to think about so much. I'd be curious if you guys, you are starting to think of yourselves as, well, we're getting on other places, but you know, that is a different mindset to: A: do video, but b: be on YouTube and the type of audience that's there, do you feel like there is a, you know, audience for technical, like how are you finding your audience for that? Like, you know, I go on, you know, other platforms say other social media platforms, TikTok or Instagram, and it's like harder to find that technical- the people looking for that type of technical information. Maybe they're not there for that. Are you seeing yourselves as YouTubers? Are you seeing yourselves finding that audience? Like how does, when you're creating content, are you trying to gear your content for who you believe is on YouTube? Or are you kind of just putting your best foot forward and having that audience find you? Brian (00:19:04): Yeah, it's a tough one because everybody, you know, you make a thing cuz you want to make it and you enjoy the process, but obviously you want people to like see it <laugh> and respond. And it's fun having those conversations with people that like dm us and are like, "no, you forgot about this tool that you should have mentioned" and, you know, and it's good. I like that stuff. That's exciting. <Laugh>. So, yeah. Yeah. So, so you know, obviously that's gonna play into it a little bit. The other thing is that we spend a lot of time like pair programming sometimes, like we'll go through and it'll be like, you know, "look at my code. What do you think about this? How would you have done this block differently?" That sort of stuff. So it felt really natural to focus on that. Brian (00:19:47): And then the other thing I would say is like, I think there's been a big thing in WordPress, like there was that CSS Tricks article that was like, "where's all the WordPress content"? You know? Like, there's no more, where are the tutorials? Where's the Pippin? Where's all the like stuff we all kind of like, you know, came from. And I think a lot of it is on YouTube. I think it's a lot easier to find a tutorial, a video tutorial on anything Gutenberg-related on YouTube than it is to find a written article. It's just the quality difference is pretty crazy. So I have to assume, and I don't know if this is something that affected us, but I have to assume that is where people are looking for it. And maybe that's just like a natural thing that's happening. Cory (00:20:28): Oh god... am I just old now. <Laugh>. Phil (00:20:32): Yeah. Yeah. You are. <Laugh>. Aurooba (00:20:35): There was a time when I couldn't even handle YouTube, but then when I forced myself to like, try it out, it was like there was no turning back, you know, I was converted. For sure. Cory (00:20:48): Yeah. See, I love you YouTube. Aurooba (00:20:49): That might happen to you too. Cory (00:20:51): <Laugh>. I do love YouTube, but I view it as a very separate—it's part of the turning off from work part of my life, usually speaking or other hobbies. Right. But yeah. But for technical tutorials or information is what I'm really looking for. Like, I don't often turn to video first, but it seems to be a thing now, right? Like, I mean, with the proliferation of very easily being able to create video and upload it onto the internet for anybody to see, like, that's becoming a huge focus. You know, but back to your point, Phil, about, you know, trying to find technical information on TikTok. If you, if you search for WordPress on TikTok, I have, because, you know, we created an In The Loop account, right? Because we're doing the audiograms thing, which is a different topic, but like, you know, you search for WordPress on TikTok and you get, you know, five top tips for SEO, yada, yada, and not really, not really what you've searched for. Phil (00:22:04): Yeah. I guess that's mainly why I asked, because, you know, I've seen the space for technical content on YouTube evolve over the years and even maybe in the past half a year to a year. And I've seen it unfortunately, what I consider lowest common denominator content kind of start popping up where top five page builder plugins for blah, blah, blah, and it's just kind of SEO filler and it's not you know, it's not meaty content that you're gonna probably gain anything from, but you're, you're clearly not putting that kind of information out there, but I just figured how much of the system do you have to game to be able to get views <laugh>? Because yeah, I've debated putting out like little tips and tricks on TikTok, but there's just not an audience for that in there, unfortunately. Like, you know, you start going down that rabbit hole and yeah. It's somebody trying to sell their premium theme that is, you know, four or five years outdated at this point. So yeah, I don't know. I was just interesting of how much of that comes into play when you're planning your content. So, but it sounds like not very much, which is good to hear. Aurooba (00:23:09): We're just like trying stuff out and there's just so much stuff we wanna talk about, and I feel like we both think if we wanna talk about it, other people wanna talk about it <laugh>, so let's just do it. Phil (00:23:19): <Laugh> nice. Yeah. I'm a firm believer of like, making the thing that you want to exist in the world. You know, I do that with most of my, especially my passion project. So I would say, yeah, keep going that direction, and if you put enough passion into it, other people see that. So- Cory (00:23:35): <Laugh>. So we've you know, this year we've branched out a little bit with the podcast. You know, previously we had a smaller social media presence, mostly Twitter and you know, which is kind of, you know, announce "so this episode is out, so here's a couple quotes" or something. This year, I gave in, I gave into the, you know, all consuming video overlord, <laugh>, and started making audiograms. Part of this process isn't just making the thing, the long form thing, whatever that is, and then like, putting it in a place for people to find it. You really, there's so much more work involved in getting the people to find it that you don't realize, you know, before you start this sort of thing. So, you know, what's your strategy been like and how have you been finding it? How have people been finding you? Brian (00:24:34): Yeah, I mean, we're still experimenting, so we're trying everything at this point. We haven't gotten to the place where we're making the YouTube thumbnails, where we're pointing at things and we're making the goofy face. Like, you know, if we get there, you know, you know, I don't know what to say <laugh>, but it's definitely, you know, more about- we're hoping, like right now we're in the middle of kind of like a narrative arc of like getting from, from the beginning of building something to the end of it and breaking it into tiny pieces. So for us, like, we kind of would also understand that maybe all of those episodes, which on a podcast you maybe would not take that journey, but maybe at the end of this, say it ends up being eight episodes or something like that on YouTube, that becomes like a greater piece of work that kind of goes together, so it might not pay off right away. And so like those sorts of things are in play, but like, we're not really expecting huge like, things on every single episode. But that said, we're trying everything, you know, sometimes it's feels like work and then sometimes it's fun to find that like social media clip that you wanna pull out and, you know, it would be fun to put more attention into that. But everything right now is like an experiment, I would say. I dunno, Aurooba, What do you think? Aurooba (00:26:00): Well, I mean, yes, to all of that. I think that there is a lot of work. Like he's said, Cory, you know, there's so much more than just hitting record on a piece of content and just talking it out. You have to edit it. And right now, Brian and I do everything ourselves. So we edit it, we have a transcription, you know, we have the YouTube, which has to have like transitions and have an intro and an outro, and then have a social clip. So share on social media and like, like I tracked my time a couple episodes ago, and it was like between five and six hours from start to finish after recording it that it took to actually get all of this done and out there and ready. And that's a lot of time. So hopefully it pays off and we figure out what kind of things are working and what isn't working. I think Brian and I both have differing opinions on like, social clips, for example. I think they're amazing. And he's just like, "do we have to do this?" Cory (00:26:58): <Laugh> Brian (00:27:00): I just never watched, like, I don't watch 'em <laugh> Cory (00:27:03): Yeah, <laugh>. Aurooba (00:27:05): We had a tweet from someone who was like, I really like your social clips. Okay. So I felt validated. Cory (00:27:11): <Laugh>, I'm still waiting for someone to say that... Brian (00:27:13): I literally complained about it, and two minutes later a DM comes in that's like "great social clip" <laugh>. Cory (00:27:20): Oh, nice. The win for Aurooba <laugh>. Aurooba (00:27:24): Yes. Cory (00:27:25): So, the editing, thankfully I've got help in the editing department now, but there's still, still so much, so much to do, especially all the, you know- it's marketing, isn't it? And that's a little outside my wheelhouse, but we're figuring it out. <Laugh>. Phil (00:27:45): Yeah. It's, a constant, it's something you know, it's just a lot of work, you know, and while we have an editor, yeah. It's not like they're not coming up with a strategy. Like, you know, Cory and I sit in our Monday meetings like, "all right, we're gonna put it out on Wednesday and then we'll put this out on Saturday and we'll put..." Cory (00:28:03): Yeah. We've just gotten to the point where it's like, okay, we have to look at these charts to see what people are actually seeing it and adjust accordingly. <Laugh>. but you know, that's— Aurooba (00:28:18): We haven't gotten there yet. <Laugh> not that granular. Cory (00:28:21): <Laugh>. Well, we'll see. I don't know. We're gonna try, we're gonna try a slightly different approach with our little audiograms and spread 'em out a little bit more. But that'll, you know, have more time in between episodes, cuz we're only putting these out monthly. So we've got this monthly podcast here. You, you're doing like the, the weekly sort of thing, but there's this other- a little bit more granular time scale that I want to talk about too. Aurooba specifically, you have another podcast. We're talking about three podcasts today! <Laugh>, tell us about your other podcast. Aurooba (00:29:01): I started the Daily Five. It's a daily five minute podcast that's been coming out for just under a hundred days now. I started on a total whim to practice shipping and putting myself out there. And it's been a crazy experiment for sure. <Laugh>. Cory (00:29:20): So five minutes of time actually like talking, or not talking, but like five minutes of final content. How long does it actually take you to record and produce that daily? Aurooba (00:29:35): So, one, I don't edit it at all. At all. So it's completely just five minutes of me literally talking or well, four minutes and 35 seconds because there's the intro and the outro <laugh>. So, and when I first started, I had so much I wanted to talk about that I could go from hitting record to scheduling it in my podcasting host platform in 20 minutes. But then as the ideas started to get a little harder and I had to think a little more, it became 30 minutes than 40 minutes. And now it's about almost 45 to 50 minutes per day to put out an episode for me. Yeah. Cory (00:30:16): Impressive. Phil (00:30:17): Where do you find the time? Cory (00:30:18): That's a level of dedication I cannot fathom. Aurooba (00:30:22): <Laugh>. I have been known to go to bed and then drag myself out of bed at 2:00 AM: 'Oh no! I need to do the podcast. I'm gonna do it. Phil (00:30:30): <Laugh>. Aurooba (00:30:31): So I just, because I told myself it has to get done no matter what. I always find the time. Phil (00:30:37): Some days are easier than others. Yeah. I have to do the same with certain workouts. Like, you know, I constantly, if I'm not waking myself up to do it, is it worth doing it all? And yeah, I'm doing hang board workouts at two in the morning cause I forgot to do it the previous day. I like the idea cause I don't reflect enough on my daily basis, but would you suggest anybody else do this? Like, it seems like it's so much work, you start with a backlog and then you started doing this and then it like, seems to dwindle? Like, I like the idea of reflecting, but like, yeah, it's a lot to put yourself out there every day. And I have a handful of just hobby blogs and it's just kind of like obscurity. So I don't like, like, oh, okay, nobody really knows about this. I don't feel too bad about putting something out into the world. But yeah. How would you suggest somebody start something like this? Would you like suggest somebody start something like this? Aurooba (00:31:33): I think that it's very hard and you have to be ready to expose a lot more of yourself than you might even think you're exposing. Brian called it a confessional once. <Laugh>, like a cross between, what did you say it was? Brian (00:31:48): <Laugh> I think I said it was a LiveJournal in podcast form. You know, like in between productivity and LiveJournal. Yeah. Phil (00:31:58): I feel like I have too many bad days to like hit record and put that out into the world every day. I would be, you know, there'd definitely be a SWAT team knocking on my door eventually. So— Aurooba (00:32:11): In some ways it's a practice in gratitude and even on the bad days, trying to find that one not bad thing that you can focus on and think about, you know? So I definitely had days where I was like, "this day was so bad, but what can I talk about that isn't just me sounding like a complaining little jerk" <laugh>. Phil (00:32:31): Yeah. Phil (00:32:31): I actually, I'm gonna bring it down right here. I made this during the pandemic. I basically was just going insane. It's just—a book every day. And I literally had to write down one thing that was good of every day. Cause I was just losing my mind, you know, sitting at my house alone for a year straight. So I stayed up on it for about two years actually. Like, it kind of fell off after the world started going back to some version of something. I'm not gonna say normal but yeah, like that definitely helped a lot, but it was hard on a lot of days, like, felt very sparse. It was just like, you know, some of 'em are just, I'm looking at it now and some of these are just two word sentences like, "ate breakfast", <laugh> Aurooba (00:33:16): Yeah. Aurooba (00:33:16): I get it. I won't lie, I've definitely been there. Cory (00:33:18): I won't lie and say that I've listened to all of them, but the, the couple that I picked to check out, I was very impressed with. I'm even more impressed now that said, you know, you just talked for 4 minutes and 35 seconds and put it out there because, you know, it was very succinct. It had a nice point, you know, it was focused like— <Applause> Aurooba (00:33:44): Thanks <laugh>, it got better. The first few were very rambly and there was like 'uhs' and 'you knows' and 'likes' and everything. It definitely helped me talk better and into a mic and think through- maybe think faster so that I was able to be more succinct in that little time limit that I'd given myself. So I definitely noticed an improvement in how I was articulating myself as I started to do more and more of them, which is also really, really cool. Cory (00:34:14): I'm a bit of a rambler, so maybe I should consider something like this, but not put it out <laugh>. Cory (00:34:23): All right. I wanna switch gears just slightly. We're still talking about, you know, podcasting or learning out loud. But now I wanna talk about the practical nature of reality where, yes we want to create, we're creative people. We wanna make things, we wanna put them out there. But there's also this other aspect living in a capitalist society that we gotta get paid for it <laugh>, you know, and I'm not, you know, specifically talking about the podcast itself, needing to earn money, but I'm more talking about well, well let me give you an example. Okay. So recently kind of tuned into the WPEngine DE{CODE} conference. Aurooba, you were on a panel and that panel actually specifically kind of factors in here because it was about well, why don't you tell us what the panel was about <laugh> for those who might have missed it. Aurooba (00:35:29): Yeah, so this was a panel I was on with a bunch of really cool people. Phil Crumm from 10up and Kat from Kanopi, and Sam and Brian from—Brian Gardner, not this Brian—from WPEngine. And it was about, you know, block building in the modern era and when it makes sense and when it doesn't and also sort of talking about the gaps and things that we hope and wish for in the block editor from like the very large enterprise agency perspective, and also like the really small maybe one person or small agency perspective as well. And it was a really fun conversation. Cory (00:36:09): It was a great conversation. And the part I didn't enjoy quite as much <laugh> the conversation was amazing, the chat, you know, it was a virtual conference, right? So the chat got real strange. And I noticed you know, I noticed this often when there are virtual conferences and we're talking about blocks and Gutenberg and I mean, I don't necessarily wanna call out people, but sometimes I gotta, sometimes I gotta call out some folks, right? Because the amount of negativity that I still see sometimes about Gutenberg in general, right? But you know, this idea of, you know, not just specifically about Gutenberg, but just like changing how we do these updating, doing things with a more modern approach. Taking—not just chasing the latest, you know JavaScript library or whatever, but it's more about keeping up with certain, maybe expectations of what people expect from the web and, using it and, making stuff for it. Cory (00:37:24): Right? Anyways, what I'm getting at here is: there's, there's this it seems to be this divide between keeping the lights on and, you know, keeping up, right? And I see what you are doing on your podcast is keeping up, right? And, you know, for us as well, the podcast—and there's a certain contingent of people that are very firmly: This is, this is how we do it now. We want it to be that way forever because it works. And, you know, don't fix something if it ain't broke kind of idea, I guess. Phil (00:38:06): But yeah, I think there's a huge—I say huge, but there's a lot of people inside the WordPress sphere who think maybe it's moving too fast and is breaking things too often. And they're very vocal. I don't even call 'em majority or anything. It's just like a very vocal minority who believe WordPress is just moving too fast, is the way I look at that when I see these comments all over Twitter. Cory (00:38:30): Well, that's a good question. Is it moving too fast? Do we think it's moving too fast? Phil (00:38:36): No. <Laugh> Phil (00:38:39): No. I feel like, you know, you're not asking me specifically, but yeah, I don't, you know- we see how long Gutenberg has existed inside of this, and we see where the rest of the web is and just how far behind we might be compared to some of these other ones. I think we're moving very thoughtfully and I appreciate that about the Gutenberg project. I think they've made missteps along the way and have, you know, backtracked and fixed some things along the way. And I think we're still doing that. But you know, I think if you look at other tools out there and then you look at what WordPress has been, it was not where it needed to be and is going into that direction and they're trying to be as thoughtful about it. Phil (00:39:18): Maybe not so much in a backwards compatibility way, but in a "the future of the web" kind of way. You know, they're, you know, trying to be very thoughtful in the way markup is being displayed and performance and all these things that a lot of these other tools are maybe don't have to think about as much cuz their bottom line is more about customer base. And our bottom line is more about preserving the web and building a platform for publishing. So I don't think, you know, are we moving fast at this point? Yes. But I also see how we could have moved a lot faster and broke a lot more things and made a way more clunky product at the end of the day. You know, so many developments even have started you know, just from css, like how much better flex has gotten and grid has gotten in the past five years. Phil (00:40:06): You know, we didn't have gap when the block editor started, like gap wasn't any, wasn't a thing. And so like, you know, now we have it and it's like, but to imagine that we implemented something less than before, we had gap and then had to backtrack would've been a bigger pitfall than if we would've just like, you know, ham fisted something in there. So yeah. I'll open it up to the rest. I feel like I could talk about this forever, but yeah, I don't feel like we—I think we could be moving faster, but I'm glad we're being very thoughtful about it along the way. Brian (00:40:39): I'll jump—I'll say this, I think there's two camps. One is the, "it's moving too fast" and the other is, "it's not moving fast enough for me to be able to like, know what I'm doing yet", like, I'm waiting, half of the people are waiting for it to be done before they jump in and the other half are afraid to jump in cuz it is moving so fast. And it is, you know, you do have to look at it and say like, everything you learned about how to build websites really is changed if you're talking about WordPress. Like that is, you know, it's good to be sensitive to people who are concerned about that, where it's like, oh, like I kind of need to learn a crazy new thing that's very hard and complicated and not the same as just like, you know, jumping into like the theme file editor in WordPress and <laugh> changing my template PHP tags, you know, and bricking my site. So like, I get that for sure. But I kind of agree with you that, you know, it's that thing that had to happen once you start doing it and you start seeing like, oh, like I can make a much better product for a client. I can make a much better editing experience. People end up usually being generally happier when they get that visual editing experience. It's definitely like, it's sort of like church where you have to sort of sip the Kool-Aid a little bit and like believe in it. Like you have to give it a little faith. And then once you do, you're like, okay, I see it. I can see the vision. And like, you just have to also recognize like we're probably still a few years off from that vision and like we all have to also be okay with that, I think. Phil (00:42:20): Yeah. No, I really like what you said there because, you know, as someone who does use it five days a week, eight hours a day you know, and have had to use it for the last four or five years at this point, you know, I've had to build websites when I didn't have all the tools that I thought I should have to deliver the product that I wanted to my clients. And that is very, I mean, even just today I was working in it and it's like I need to do a very classic CSS thing where I have a box that is a hundred percent width of a flex stretch and I need the button to be at the bottom at all times, no matter how long the you know, the excerpt is across three different rows. And it's like in css, in a markup that's a handful of lines of code, but in the block editor just not possible yet without having to like shove some code in there and while I'm frustrated doing that right now, I know that other solutions to solve that will come down the line and, you know, while I might need to like, you know, do some kind of stopgap right now, eventually it will get solved in a way that maybe I can't even imagine what it is right now. Maybe it'll be something—because that's happened. Like we've talked about it even on this podcast where I'm like, you know, ranting and like, like, "oh, why doesn't this exist?" And then three months later a new version of Gutenberg comes out and it's like, oh yeah, why wouldn't they have, dang I didn't, why? Yeah. I wouldn't have thought like that, thanks. Cory (00:43:38): The things that we were doing to make like, theme-structured spacing sizes work in Guttenberg before that. Oh man. <Laugh> Phil (00:43:48): Sure, yeah. Before block-gap and even—the whole spacing options that in general and the root padding and all that kind of stuff, you know, we were hand-rolling our own group styles. Aurooba (00:44:00): Yep. Phil (00:44:00): Because we had to for the longest time, like even in the, the themes that came with WordPress, they were doing it too. So I was looking to them for their to lead examples. But yeah, now that we kind of just look at the center of whole page as this kind of like margined absolute object, you know, you can start saying like, oh, okay, that's how you do full width anything. Which in the past we were like, oh, do I do negative margins to kind of get to the edge of the page? Do I have to do a whole bunch of JavaScript math? Phil (00:44:29): Do I have to do like, you know, all these crazy things to get things to float in the way that you wanted because you had to break out of that container like a la bootstrap days and now it's like, "oh no". Like you guys just came up with a way better idea on how to solve it. And while there's lots of pitfalls there, you know, aligning images are still little wonky and blah blah, blah, it's like it, at the end of the day, it solves more problems than it caused. And that's, you know, you know that that's what comes out of a product that is moving at the speed that it is moving at, you know, <laugh> Aurooba (00:44:58): When we were doing our last, second to last episode, we were about to dig into React and we talked, Brian and I talked about, you know, when Matt Mullenweg gave the directive to everyone to "learn JavaScript deeply". So for the show notes, I had to go and find that clip. And that was a 2015 State of the Word. And I found myself listening to it. Phil (00:45:25): <Laugh>. I was there. Yeah. Aurooba (00:45:29): I didn't even know WordCamps existed back then, so, Phil (00:45:31): <Laugh>. Aurooba (00:45:33): And something that Matt said in there really struck me as like the core vision here. He said, I think it was 13 that, you know, WordPress has existed for 13 years and if we wanted to exist for the next 13, this is what we have to do. And that struck me really strongly because like, this is about making sure, like Phil already said, is about preserving the web. And the way you do it is with this really intentional move into the modern development, modern way of doing something, but not trying to meet the trends that we are seeing, but trying to be more thoughtful about it. And, you know, I've been mad for a long time that there's no responsive break points and everything in the block editor. I have come around, I have come around <laugh> that it's okay that we have to do things on our own instead until there's such a good solution that they can bake that in instead of breaking something half like a stop gap in there right now and then having to undo it or have to support it in weird ways later. So I have come around, Cory (00:46:37): I'm really glad that you brought that up cuz I wanted to bring it up if it didn't come up. We talked about it, you know, last episode with, with Frank right? This the WordPress developer blog article about— Phil (00:46:51): We talked about this when Aurooba was on last time also, by the way. This specific issue. Cory (00:46:54): Yeah. I guess we did, didn't we? <Laugh>. But I think that maybe, you know, Phil and I come down on this in different ways. I think we've disagreed a little bit on this in the past, but this whole intrinsic design concept, it's obviously not ready for the limelight necessarily in the block editor. But we know that the tools are coming. We know that the CSS is catching up with the whole idea. And Intrinsic design has been around for a while. It was talked about by gosh, Jen Simmons and, and those folks years ago. I'm not gonna put a date on it cuz I'll be wrong. But you know, we have already entered the era of intrinsic design with Flex and Grid, tools that have enabled us to do very specific things with our layouts. And yeah, sure the block editor needs to catch up with those things, but yeah, I don't know. Phil (00:48:04): I don't even know if it's so much that the block editor needs to catch up with them as much as those tools that are starting to come out need to kind of solidify. I mean, container queries are actually just looking at them today and they're not, they work across the board on most browsers, but only like the latest versions, you know, that is not good enough. And yeah, like while I don't know if we disagree so much, as much as I get grumpy when I need to make something for a client. Like why does the button float to the right when I need to float to the left on mobile and oh my gosh. It's like I'm more annoyed than anything than I am. Like I understand where we're going. But yeah, this is actually the responsive thing is such an interesting— Phil (00:48:38): Cory and I went down this like, train of thought. It's like, oh, can we define those in the, the JSON, but you can't use those numbers inside of a query, a media query right now. Like you can't inject a CSS variable into a media query. And then if you weave internally come up with our own solutions for that of like, you know, extracting those, using PHP and blah blah blah and, and using Gulp to kind of just grab those numbers outta there. But that's not a good system for everybody. It's not a, honestly, it's not a good system for most people. Like, you know, especially if you're building a theme- I was just having this conversation with somebody on Twitter about, you know, especially themes for the directory right now is we're trying to build these themes that you're able to replace in place is kind of the way I think of it. Phil (00:49:22): You know, we're not defining colors by their name. We're defining them as like primary, secondary, tertiary on purpose. So when we replace them that we're able to hot swap them. And same thing with, you know, layouts and we want someone to be able to activate a new theme and it not look like complete garbage right after unlike previous themes where you would do that and your menus are gone, your widgets are now all in this like inactive state and yeah. And you're basically then spending, hopefully you're on a staging server local, but like if you're just an average Joe Schmoe and you wanna make your plumbing website look a little bit better and you just activate a theme and all of a sudden it just got obliterated, now you're spending the next days. If you're not a WordPress expert, like just putting your website back together and hopefully, you know, we're solving that. Like, you know, we're saying, Hey, we wanna put a nice fresh coat of paint on my site. I'm gonna hit activate on this new, you know, theme. And I'm at least at a baseline. Good <laugh>. So yeah, Cory (00:50:24): So getting back to the, you know, whole like keeping up concept and keeping the light on thing, I wanted to ask a very specific question. And, maybe this, the answers that I get here are gonna be a little bit biased because <laugh>, we're all, you know, we're all working in relatively small teams and or one person, you know, teams here. But you know, is there an advantage to a very small or one person team when it comes to keeping up with things and, and how you choose to keep up with things might include something like learning out loud with the blog or a podcast, right. Versus a very large company where each developer has to be trained to do things a certain way so that you know, you can all kind of work together and coordinate at a similar level? Or am I just, you know, am I just thinking about this all wrong—and I wanna hear from Brian about this. Brian (00:51:26): Yeah. You know, it's a tough one cuz the biggest thing with the team is you do want everyone to be on the same page. And I feel like, you know, you have talked about this idea that some of the harder parts about this transition phase is just knowing what the right path is. You know, I don't actually know if the block editor can do this thing. So first I gotta research and find out and figure out the best. So like, all those best practices just are sort of out there in the ether and we haven't like, solidified what they all are. So then it's hard to say, let's have all 10 people on separate projects doing separate things and, you know, discovering that. And it can be fun and it can be, you know, hard, but like the size of the team I think is maybe not even as important as the size of like the project or the size of the budget or the size of the profit margin where you can say like, how much room can I go over my <laugh> budget internally to learn this new thing? Brian (00:52:28): Which is like a very like pressing thing, you know, that I'm grappling with right now. It's like, all right, how far can I push <laugh> the profit margin of this website to say, but I really wanna learn how to do this type of block. I really wanna learn how to do this, you know, like negative margins I think is like a big one we're dealing with, all those little things, you know? So, you know, even just doing it on your own, it's like you have to have the room to to, to grow and like teach yourself at some sort of a cost. Like those hours have to come from somewhere. And then if you're in like a large team, I have to imagine that some of these larger companies you know, are starting in small pockets and letting it spread out and discovering best practices. And like, they have the room to educate and educate, you know, with a best practice, not educate with a, like, go explore and, and see what you think is the best way to do it which is sometimes what we're all doing. Phil (00:53:25): Yeah. I think that, I like how you said that, and I don't think it has anything to do with the size of team as much as like, it's a tough pill to swallow to say that this is gonna take me longer than it would if I did it a different way to do the same thing. And that I was able to do in the past for, you know, the same amount of money, especially in the agency world. It's interesting cause I feel like we were having that conversation a handful of years ago where I feel like now that we have our scaffolding has matured and you know, WordPress has matured. We have that conversation less often. And it is something I said a long time ago, it was like, I'm hoping we get to the point where I can maybe spend less time on some of, like, the trivial and I can spend more time on the block building. Phil (00:54:06): I can be in react more. I can be in JavaScript more. And actually even just recently, I was able to develop our first full site editing theme. And there was actually a moment where, yeah, I didn't have to think so much about creating the layout and all these other things that maybe would've taken me a little bit longer in maybe a more traditional hybrid or older PHP templated way. And I was able to actually just sit down and like build a couple blocks very well. It allotted me the time to do that because I was able to spend less time building out the other aspects of the website that maybe would've taken me longer if I was doing this in a more traditional way. But that took a long time to get to that point and, you know, I had to take like a leap of faith into, especially for full site editing to say like, will I be able to solve, you know, negative margin things building an accordion that I don't hate <laugh> that works the way I imagine it to work. Phil (00:55:00): And I luckily I was able to like, yeah, that was great, but I don't think if I had to solve all of the other problems on top of those problems, I would've been in the red every day of the week. Cory (00:55:11): It's too bad. I know that, you know, I recall when you were building that accordion, it was a little while ago cuz I heard someone else was doing a series on a <laugh> an accordion block for for Gutenberg. Aurooba (00:55:26): Who? Tell us, I dunno who the are. <Laugh>, Brian (00:55:30): Do people build accordion blocks? Is that a thing that happens? Every day at every agency? Phil (00:55:35): Every single day. Well, it's so interesting cuz, yeah, actually I watched a whole bunch of—I just went and googled tutorials on how all of them, and none of them met all the criteria I needed. This one, the way this designer designed their accordion was good looking, but it wasn't like anything I could pull off the shelf. And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna have to do something custom here. Because they needed essentially a complete block editor inside of each section. Like, so they needed, you know, inner blocks more or less for the title and for the content because the title itself was as complex as what the content needed to be. So I couldn't just use, you know: 'here's a field for the title of the accordion'. Phil (00:56:17): It needed to be able to support columns and rows and different font sizes. And it was like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna have to like, yeah, that just doesn't exist right now. There is no plugin that just does that on top of like, needing to be the style that the designer asked for. I was happy to be afforded the time to be able to do that. It's not like they afforded me the time. It's the fact that like, you know, honestly, it's actually a very tight turnaround for this website. But because I was using full site editing, I didn't have to think about PHP templates so much. And I was like, I could just kind of knock these out in the block editor but I did have to solve, you know, mobile menus are still a complete hellscape inside of WordPress. So I did have to come up with a custom solution for that, you know, wasn't part of core, but yeah. At least I was able to do that. Cory (00:57:10): So switching gears again Brian you just got back from WordCamp Phoenix, correct? Brian (00:57:21): Correct. Cory (00:57:21): You spoke, you spoke on stage at WordCamp Phoenix, and last time we talked in episode 21 last year you know, it, it seemed like you were kind of, you know, I don't wanna say like just getting started with Gutenberg, but like you were having conversations with folks and trying to figure out some stuff with it, and now you're giving talks at WordCamp. So what happened in that intervening time—other than the podcast with Aurooba? Brian (00:57:49): <Laugh> Yeah. We'll put having a podcast with Aurooba is the clear elephant in the room. I, well, so for context, my talk was very much- if you've never used the block editor, could you use ACF blocks, but still think in your kind of like flexible content ACF rows mindset as like, you know, I do think ACF Blocks has this perfect thing where it borrows a lot from the block editor and it uses block JSON and uses like a lot of native stuff. And then it still feels like ACF that we've all used for like a decade. So I wanted to be very much like if you just want to dip like one toe into the block editor, but really not change any of your workflow at all and not think about build processes and react and stuff, what would that look like? Brian (00:58:46): So the talk was not like, you know let's build a block in 15 minutes and I'm spinning up React and all that, stuff like that. But but you know, I did need to have like both experiences to kind of find where that gap is and I think that's this huge, this huge gap and like those people who are upset in the chat room about, you know, the block editor and stuff like that, I think they want to see like a path forward. And so that was more of the approach was like, 'how can we start like filling in that gap', because it's either, you know, you need to know React or you need to, you know, write ACF fields and use the classic editor plugin, but there's so much room in the middle for people. So that was the talk. I don't want to give the impression that it was like a huge block editor extravaganza. Cory (00:59:39): I think what you're doing is really important there. Right? And you know, you said earlier that like, there are some folks who are not afforded the time to keep up with this. It is a very different way to approach, you know, custom development for WordPress. And, you know, some folks are just waiting for that path forward. Show me how I can quickly transition to doing this. And then, you know, what were we doing a couple years ago even talking about on this podcast was like, how are we transitioning? What are we doing? A lot of that, most of that was ACF, right? ACF Blocks gave us that path to transitioning towards a more JavaScript- not a lot of JavaScript, but just enough, you know, to get to where we are now. Cory (01:00:34): So you have to clear that cowpath before it can be paved. <Laugh>. Right. <laugh>. Speaking of cowpaths Aurooba, since your episode, we talked with you and then the episode afterward with Lesley (Sim) about building plugins and you were, you were putting out a lot of plugins and doing a lot of cool stuff. Still are, I assume <laugh> and you know, we talked about, well what would it take for us to do that kind of stuff? I will say checking in with you instead of me, you know, asking you what you've done since then. I have been busy myself. Aurooba (01:01:29): Yes, lemme check in with you. Cause that's the thing we talked about last: Cory needs to build something! Come on, now. Cory (01:01:34): Yes. Yeah, yeah. No, I have been busy in my tiny amount of spare time. Building things, trying to get, trying to grapple with this idea of, not just building, but shipping. So I'm in the building phase, <laugh>, I'm still not in that, you know, that shipping phase yet. It's baby steps, but I've got a couple irons in the fire. I guess all I'll say for now, I'll give you a little teaser is that I'm building blocks for things that don't have blocks yet. So check out my GitHub for, you know, more details about what I'm up to. I don't know any updates on your end? How is Super List? <Laugh> Aurooba (01:02:24): Honestly, super list is kind of stagnant in the sense that there is a tiny little bug in it and I have not been able to find the time to fix this tiny bug, but it is on my list for April. I think that since the last time we talked, you know, at the time I was really thinking that plugins were gonna be this way that I contributed to the community. And then I realized, one, I got super burnt out after a really intense project and I took a break from like, the world. And then when I came back into the world, I was like, you know what I really teaching, I think that that's where I wanna go. So that goes right in line with, you know, starting this podcast with Brian. That's kind of around the time when I met him. And, you know, I am slowly just trying to find that balance again of building and teaching and paying the bills and, you know, being a human, a full human who has other parts of their life outside of just work. Aurooba (01:03:25): We talked about that last time too, you know, that balance, finding that balance. And I think that I'm still not a hundred percent sure what that balance looks like and it's a work in progress. But yeah. So right now plugins are, I think they're awesome. And I literally link to my plug-ins when I'm teaching and sharing code with junior devs all the time. Super List is so handy that way. <Laugh>, it's ridiculous. Cause there's some pretty interesting things in there. Not gonna lie, not to toot my own horn or anything, but it's kind of cool Cory (01:03:57): <Laugh>. Phil (01:03:58): Yeah, it's always good when you can have like an example you can like—oh, and this is how I solved this previously. And like, I was teaching somebody over the weekend just very basic HTML and CSS. But then I was pulling up my old code pens and I'm like, oh, this is how like em's versus rem's work. And I created an example that I had made eight years ago for a button. I was like, oh, look how this button dynamically grows when like you change the font size on one. And like, it was just so useful to have exactly all those examples just that you can pull out and just be like, this is a practical example of this. So that's awesome. I'm glad that you're still able to get, you know, those are still benefiting you even in your new pursuits. And it sounds like, you know, with your teaching, like the podcast is just an extension. You know, they all synergize very well together. So you're teaching through the podcast, sounds like you're doing some one-on-one type of work also, so that's amazing. Aurooba (01:04:47): Yeah, it's fun. I do wanna get back and put a little bit more focus on the plugins, but that's not quite on the plate quite yet. Cory (01:04:55): Fair enough. Yeah. I know that the core list block has changed a little bit since we spoke too, I think we might have talked about like: oh, it seems like the core list block is going to get, you know, inner blocks, but I don't think that's actually the case. Aurooba (01:05:13): Yeah, it's not quite the same. It's not what we were hoping for it to do. Super list, despite that bug, you know, a lot of people will download it from GitHub because the bug only affects the repo version. And a lot of people still download it. It still meets a big gap, big need, because the core list block does not let you do InnerBlocks quite right. Cory (01:05:33): They're doing—they're more blocks, right? They're InnerBlocks now, I guess, but they're very specifically like this. They're only lists, list only blocks, not anything else. So yeah. You're safe for now. <Laugh> Aurooba (01:05:48): I mean, I would love to go obsolete in this case. I would love for this to be core. You know, I don't want to, I feel like this is something that should be in core and that it's not in core yet is baffling. But, you know, maybe one day, <Laugh> Cory (01:06:03): We were just having a conversation on Twitter with a couple folks about 'what are the blocks that you have to keep building kind of, you know, each project Phil (01:06:18): Accordion block Cory (01:06:19): <Laugh>. Yeah, yeah. Accordion block one of them. Certainly. some, some kind of carousel in some fashion. It might not be like a hero carousel, but it might be something, you know, something else, right? Yeah. Icon, icon blocks always for me, there's always some. Speaking of that though, there's some interesting developments there. The Safe SVG plugin finally just released their SVG block— Aurooba (01:06:49): Props, Cory. Cory (01:06:49): I don't, I don't deserve any props for that, but I did open the the issue in their repository, like: "why don't you have a block?" <Laugh> I need a block and I don't have time to build it. I mean, I've built it, but I want it to be in the plugin that works well. So, yeah. Aurooba (01:07:07): Yeah. Cory (01:07:09): Yeah. So that's, yeah. The thing that I've built is obsolete, but the, you know, that's gonna be better. So <laugh>. Aurooba (01:07:15): Exactly. Now I think about it too. Cory (01:07:18): <Laugh>. So, yeah, the final question that I wanna leave on, because, yes, sadly it is, it is time to wrap up once again, is why, why, why are we doing this? What are we doing, Phil? Why <laugh>? Why learn in Public? Phil (01:07:37): I know my answer. I thought it'd just be really sad if you were doing this podcast alone. <Laugh> So I just tagged along <laugh> I was forced into this position and I just imagined what it would be like: Cory just sitting here alone waiting for guests to pop on, running these documents by himself. I'm like, well, you know. Need somebody to tag along. Cory (01:07:54): This frowny face. Sad face. Aurooba (01:07:57): Damn that empathy! Phil (01:07:57): Pessimist co-host Phil Hoyt. Phil being the filler, you know, keep the conversation moving. Or, maybe, take it over. Cory (01:08:07): Yeah, okay, but it's not just about this podcast though. You've, you've got plenty of things going where you are putting stuff out there in public. I might have my Crock of Time, right. But you're doing the climbing stuff. Phil (01:08:20): Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have hobbies, you know, outside of WordPress. Cory (01:08:23): <laugh>. Yeah. But, but not everybody that has hobbies also builds a whole website to tell people about it. Phil (01:08:31): <Laugh>, you know, I think about that a lot. And it's basically, there's actually interviews with me at like old WordCamps, and I always think like the least you can do if you have the tools, is teach somebody something. And like, if you have something, if you know something that you know, other people wanna learn and you have the tools to teach them that you should do it. Like that is it, it takes such little effort at the end of the day. Like, it sounds like it's a lot of effort, but like actually sitting down and like teaching somebody or like putting out a tutorial is so much less effort once you're actually in the groove of doing it. And the benefit for that echoes infinitely, like that will trickle out into the world forever. So, like, you know, with my hobby blog for climbing, it's like, yeah, I put out a I have a website where I tell people about a specific area where they can climb. Phil (01:09:16): And, you know, for me that, you know, yeah, it's a lot of hours, but ultimately I get so many emails and so many people that walk up to me in that area and just saying like, wow, I use this on a weekly basis. And it's, you know, changed the way I view this you know, geographic area. And it's like, yeah, well, I'm glad it was all worth it. And you know, I see that with your guys' podcast. It's, you know, you're putting out this, you know, this drop in the bucket, but that ripples out infinitely forever. So that's why I do it. And I'm, I assume that's why everybody does it. Cory (01:09:46): Does anyone have anything to add to that? <Laugh> Phil, you put it so well, we're all left speechless. Go ahead, Brian. Brian (01:09:56): I was gonna say, I also think like, explaining something is really the best way to understand it. So I find that like, when we have to do a podcast on something, it's like the next one we're gonna do is something around accessibility. And it's like, I know the proper things to do, but like, now that I have to go through the homework of preparing, I can force myself to learn it a little deeper and feel a little more confident about all the things. And you know, it's really nice to be able to say like, okay, if I'm gonna walk into this situation and outline some of this stuff, I do feel like I'm forcing myself to internalize it a little bit better and I'm gonna know it a little deeper. So it, you know, it can be a little selfish to learn in public too, cuz you kind of push yourself a little further. Cory (01:10:43): Well, we all know that there's, you know, folks who, who are gonna reply and say, you did this part wrong <laugh>, you want that, right? You want the thing that you put out there to be as good and complete and whole and perfect as possible. And yeah. In the process, I guess you're learning how to do it perfectly <laugh> or close enough. Aurooba (01:11:06): Or better than before anyway. Brian (01:11:08): Yeah. As long as their replies are nice, then I don't mind them. Cory (01:11:11): <Laugh>. Fair enough. Compliment sandwich, people. Tell them that, that their voices are very soothing and then say that they did something wrong. <Laugh>, Phil (01:11:24): A carrot, a stick, and then another carrot to follow it up. Cory (01:11:27): Yeah. All right. Well I think unless you have anything to add to Aurooba, Aurooba (01:11:31): No, I think that everything that I would wanna say has already been said. You know, I do it for the same reasons. It helps me learn, it helps me contribute, it helps me make friends like you, lovely people. And it's a lot of fun. Cory (01:11:45): <Laugh>. And with that, we'll let you go and see you all next time. Aurooba (01:11:51): Thanks for having us. Phil (01:11:52): Yeah. Thanks for joining. Brian (01:11:53): Thank you. Cory (01:11:58): That's all for this episode. Thanks again to Aurooba and Brian for coming back on the show. It's nice to know we're all figuring this out together, but we're also keeping each other accountable. Follow viewSource on Twitter @viewsourcefm, Aurooba @Aurooba, and Brian @Briancoords. Check the episode description for links to things we mentioned in the show, in particular, viewsource.fm. As always, don't forget to send your questions, thoughts, and fan mail to [email protected]. You can also find us on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok as InTheLoop_WP. If you're interested in having a WordPress website custom-built, or you want to join a team that does that, head over to our site at blackbird.digital and drop us a line. Thanks for listening to In The Loop. See you next time.
