How were you first introduced to WordPress?
I maintained dozens of websites for friends who were starving artists and musicians, so like all good developers I built my own CMS. When none of my starving artist and musician friends wanted to pay for it, I switched them all to WordPress so they could maintain their sites themselves.
What do you like about it?
It’s so prevalent. It’s becoming a web standard, so it’s easier to suggest, develop for and contribute to.
What do you do with WP now?
Full-time development.
How as the WP community helped you?
There’s so much discussed and written about WordPress online now, I rarely have a question that hasn’t been answered.
Did learning WP lead to any significant changes in your life?
Yes! I was a full-time PHP developer, and got my first full-time WordPress job about 4 years ago. Suddenly I was dropped into the deep end, and had to *really* learn the patterns and best practices. Which lead me to an awesome community, a lot more work, and a new revenue stream.
What would you tell a new user? A new developer?
For users – have a clear intent for your site, and hire someone to set it up for you.
For developers – setup a site you don’t care about, and break things. Most people start because they need a website that matters, so they’re afraid of it.
Anything else we should know?
I also build non-WordPress web apps like WhatWeDid.Today, cronForWP.com and TimerDoro.com.