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• Blake Whittle (@BlakeWhittle7): No—those sticking to outdated methods (e.g., PHP themes) are at higher risk. AI and page builders like Elementor will thrive, balancing pro features with ease for edits.
  • Hoyer counters: Geary specifically targets no-code users as replaceable, except the top 1% for local business sites.
• Kim von Däniken (@KimvonDaniken): Unlikely, as no tool fully translates client needs into sites meeting accessibility, SEO, and best practices.
• Ibrahim Sawyer (@ibmswr): Possibly, if they stop evolving.
• Ciprian Popescu (@cipriangb): No replacement—everyone adapts, as devs have for 35+ years. “Page builder” devs will persist alongside coders.
  • Hoyer agrees: Calls it the best take; notes “developer” is used loosely, and he mixes code with builders (e.g., hooks/filters to extend).
• Ed Muntz (@muntzdesign): Simply “Nah.”
• Warren Laine-Naida (@WarrenLNaida): In 5 years, none of us may be building sites anyway.
  • Hoyer jokes: We’ll be wealthy and retired?
• Dave Bloom (@davebloomdev): No—AI could more easily replace coders than page-builder users. No-code’s popularity shows its value; sites don’t need perfection, and clients don’t care about the tooling UX.

• Group 1: Impatient laypeople – They abandon tools quickly because nothing can be made simple enough for them.
• Group 2: Patient beginners/intermediates – They invest time in proprietary UIs but waste it on non-transferable skills, making mistakes and avoiding deeper learning; Geary calls this a “near-complete waste” and compares tools to “Fisher Price page builders.”
• Group 3: Experienced pros – They get frustrated by limitations and bail out fast.

• Andrew Hoyer (@andrewhoyer) defends simple sites for small businesses using page editors, saying they’re hard to replace affordably. Geary counters that it’s a “race to the bottom” for low-consequence clients.
• Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt), WordPress co-founder, notes WordPress itself is low-code/no-code and hugely successful. Geary retorts that even WordPress has a steep, agonizing learning curve for newcomers, suggesting a docuseries to prove it, and predicts poor results without guidance.
• Rob DeHaven (@robdehaven) asks if pattern/frame libraries worsen the issue for beginners. Geary says no—they speed up pros’ work without proprietary barriers, as they’re built on standard web design language.
• Koi (@madebykoi), a “20-year pro,” says they use no-code tools like Bricks for clients unless custom coding is budgeted, reducing frustrations.
• Kirsty Marks (@KirstyCodes) identifies as Group 3.
• oriadefolahan (@oriadefolahan) agrees, explaining why experienced devs avoid WordPress or similar tools long-term.
• Marcus Aurelius (@MarcusA3719756) admits being Group 2 as a hobbyist, learning gradually. Geary replies that years in tools like Elementor/Divi could be replaced by 3 weeks of CSS learning for better results.

1. Core Thesis: The End of Low-Code/No-Code

• Geary asserts that the era of low-code/no-code (and what he calls “vibe-code”) tools is “DONEZO” (i.e., finished or irrelevant).
• He claims the industry has invested over 10 years in developing these tools, but it has been an “abject failure” because they don’t deliver meaningful value to users.
• In the emerging AI era, he predicts that users of these tools—especially those with low or proprietary skills—will be replaced, as AI demands “real skills” rather than simplistic interfaces.

2. Three User Groups and How These Tools Fail Them

• Group 1: Laypeople with Very Little Patience
  • These are non-experts who seek quick, easy solutions but lack the time or tolerance for any learning curve.
  • Tools marketed as “easy” still require some effort, which this group abandons quickly. Geary argues you can never simplify things enough to retain them—no matter the design, they “give up very quickly” and “can’t be helped.”
• Group 2: Laypeople/Beginners/Intermediates with Time and Patience
  • This group is willing to invest hours (or even years) to master a tool’s interface and build functional sites.
  • However, Geary sees this as a “massive price tag” and a “near-complete waste” because:
    • They learn proprietary, tool-specific skills (e.g., a unique UI) that aren’t transferable to professional environments.
    • The time could be better spent acquiring “actual skills” like coding or broadly applicable web development knowledge.
    • Users in this group often “actively avoid learning” deeper concepts, leading to “a gazillion mistakes” due to the tools’ “oppositional approaches” (i.e., they encourage shortcuts that undermine best practices).
  • He anticipates backlash from this group, as they won’t admit to “wasting years and years of their life learning pretty close to nothing.” He compares their tools to “Fisher Price page builders,” implying they’re toy-like and leave users unskilled outside that ecosystem.
• Group 3: Experienced Pros
  • These are skilled developers who try these tools but quickly become “intensely frustrated” by inherent limitations, inefficiencies, and “bullshit” (e.g., rigid constraints that hinder advanced work).
  • Pros abandon them almost immediately in favor of more powerful, flexible options.

3. Broader Implications and Advice

• Geary warns that people relying on these tools (especially Group 2) are “about to be replaced” and won’t be able to sustain their careers or “pay their bills in a couple years.”
• He urges aspiring or current web professionals to “take your medicine ASAP”: abandon low-code/no-code in favor of learning “real skills” and using “real tools” (implying coding, standard development practices, etc.).
• In the AI era, he argues, there’s “no use for low-skilled workers,” positioning these tools as crutches that hinder long-term viability.
• He advises against listening to defenders of these tools, as they’re biased and facing their own irrelevance—don’t let them “convince you that these tools are legitimate or relevant.”

Context and Tone

• Geary’s post is opinionated and provocative, using strong language (e.g., “DONEZO,” “abject failure,” “Fisher Price”) to emphasize his points. It’s aimed at the WordPress/web dev community, where tools like page builders (e.g., Elementor) are common.
• He doesn’t provide specific evidence or examples beyond these generalizations, framing it as hard-earned insight from his experience as a WordPress entrepreneur and educator.
• The argument sparked debate in the thread, with responses pushing back on his pessimism, emphasizing adaptation, mixed tool use, and the ongoing value of no-code for certain tasks.

00:03 Now Justin’s home.
00:11 We’re going to make time stand still
00:24 after midnight and I’m watching the wall.
00:30 Sometimes I feel so uptight. I just can’t sleep at all.
00:37 Every day doing the same old thing. We’re losing time.
00:43 The weekend comes. We got to have some fun and rewind.
00:51 These are the days of thunder. We’re going to make time stand still. We
00:58 got to feel the hunger hanging over the edge just to taste the thrill.
01:11 I feel the rope tightening, choking off our air.
01:18 We need to grab some lightning. Friday’s almost here.
01:25 Caught in a web. We need to cut this thread we’re hanging by.
01:32 Where is it said you have to be half dead to survive?
01:39 These are the days of thunder. We’re going to make time stand still. We
01:46 got to feel the hunger hanging over the edge just to taste the thrill.
01:53 [Music]
02:06 These are the days of thunder. We’re going to make time stand still. We
02:13 got to feel the hunger. Hanging over the edge just to taste the thrill. These are
02:20 the days of thunder. We’re going to make time stand still. We
02:27 got to feel the hunger hanging over the edes to taste the thrill.
02:39 These are the days of thunder.
02:50 There we go. So, it is time. Let’s uh roll this
02:60 almost. It’s episode three of WP Plugins A to Zed Unplug.
03:05 Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for WordPress plugins A to Zed, not Z.
03:14 And today I have a new plug-in reviews, some news, tips, plug-in extras, and more coming up on WP Plugins or Plug-in
03:23 Pulse. WP Plugins A to Zed Unplugged.
03:30 WordPress, the king of content management systems, powering the web. With over 80,000 plugins to choose from,
03:37 how do you sort the junk from the gems? Welcome to WP Plugins A to Zed, where
03:43 we’ve been keeping the pulse of WordPress alive for over 16 incredible years. Join us every week for an
03:50 unrehearsed real talk breakdowns of the latest and greatest plugins, developer, and community member interviews. Some
03:57 weeks, Amber and I team up to dig in. Others, I’m flying solo, unpacking WordPress news, demoing a standout
04:04 plugin, or sharing tips to power up your site. No scripts, no pluff, just the
04:10 good stuff from A to Z. So, plug in and let’s get rolling.
04:16 Well, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you happen to be hiding out there on the globe today. Coming to you direct from the brewery
04:22 overlooking beautiful southern Vancouver Island. I’m John Oallin, all by myself
04:28 today. My daughter Amber, who’s usually on the show with me for this show, she got married over the weekend, and she’s
04:34 she’s skied daddled out with her uh new hubby to go on a honeymoon. Well, you
04:40 know, I guess they got to go do that after everything. They were pretty burned out after all the effort of the wedding, but it was a great wedding. And
04:46 for those that might be interested, you can catch it all at lenoverall.com.
04:52 Uh up there for the world to see. I thought it was lots of fun. Proud daddy here. like to see that she’s doing well
04:60 and uh all of that great time. So, she’s got some time off to go enjoy her new
05:05 husband. Don’t she’ll be back in two weeks time and we will get back to working real hard. All right. What am I
05:13 doing? I’ve got a show and we’re going to see how long we can keep it going and it will be rather fun and entertaining
05:22 at times. and we’re just going to talk of some things
05:27 that are going to take us through a couple of different paths. I’m going to showcase a plug-in live and uh talk
05:34 about a couple of things that went down in the WordPress world over the last week and or so.
05:40 First thing up, we’re going to have a little discussion on
05:46 Bing. Please turn your camera on. Camera’s on. Oh, yeah. I haven’t I
05:54 haven’t changed the image. Find me. There we transition to me. How’s that?
06:00 It’s better. Oh, I’ve tried to trans time.
06:08 I have to do things differently because I’m doing it solo here.
06:14 All right. So, what have we got? First up, there was a very interesting
06:19 discussion started by Kevin Gary, who came to my attention back in last spring
06:26 when he had that one big long show. I don’t remember the fellow’s name right
06:32 now, but uh talking about nobody that you should not build a website for
06:37 $5,000 or less than $5,000, which I thought was an interesting concept. He’s
06:42 come in with a whole new aspect and that is this here and
06:50 he was spouting off about low code no code era is dunzo
06:56 and what he was talking about for contents he was context he was talking about three groups of people who work on
07:02 websites or have websites the lay person with very little patience for building a
07:08 website the lay people beginners intermediates who have a lot of time and patience and desire to get through with
07:13 learning and uh experienced pros who use low code no code vibe tools and
07:20 simplistic page builders and oh no he goes low code no code vibe tools and simplistic page builders fail each of
07:27 these groups in different ways we’ll cover this one out his his in
07:34 group one he says the group thinks it’s easy tools will help them but they really have no time and patience and give up quickly well I kind of agree
07:40 with him there. I find that regularly with clients that come to me, they can do it myself and they get into it and
07:46 they find out it’s actually work to use those tools and
07:52 they can’t be helped. You’re right. Group two, he’s saying these ones will push through and spend countless hours
07:58 learning proprietary, no code, low code, vibe code, UI, and actually be able to build stuff eventually. But it comes
08:05 with a massive price tag because the same time could have been spent learning actual skills that are transferable to
08:10 any number of pro interfaces. Instead, they have tons of hours invested, relatively basic, proprietary
08:16 that got a bit of a point there in that uh you can learn the basic skills or
08:22 learn the skills where you can jump from tool to tool to tool, whichever one happens to uh work best with your brain.
08:30 I’ve been bouncing around different tools over the years myself. And um as final one, experienced pros, a
08:39 group intensely frustrated by the limitations and inherent in no code, low code tools, jump ship almost
08:47 immediately. Yes and no. There’s a ton of experienced pros out there that use these low code
08:54 tools because it saves them a ton of time. they can still build just as high
08:60 quality stuff. And of course, he’s talking about pushing his Etch C most of the time is where he’s working with this
09:06 one here. And in the interview I did last week with
09:16 folks, I I have I have name I have name issues. Easily pop back up here. pop in here
09:27 with James Webb. There we go. James Webb, the the interview I did last week, we got into talking about the Etch uh
09:34 product because he really loves it and I’ve only glanced at it, but he did help
09:39 me understand what Etch is and that Etch from his perspective and after I looked
09:46 at it again, yeah, he’s kind of right. It’s kind of like Dreamweaver or WordPress. And for those of us that
09:53 started in the Dreamweaver era, well, that was one of the tools we used to make our lives a whole lot easier
09:59 because we could develop something and it would give us a visual output at the same time we’re looking
10:07 which is very helpful. These days I build in Elementor which gives me a pure visual element and if I need the code I
10:14 can go and dig into the code. All right. So anyway, Kevin goes on uh
10:22 saying the industry spent 10 years trying to engineer low code, no code tools, been essentially an abject
10:29 failure. Well, what he’s done,
10:35 I can’t say it’s low, it’s low code. It’s a high code high code tool. Um
10:42 and then he’s like the PE group group two will completely disagree with it. of course. Um, and his advice, anyone wants
10:49 to persist in this industry, take your medicine, learn to acquire real school skills, use real tools, the AI era has
10:56 no use for lowskilled workers. Well, he’s right there. Um, from what I’ve
11:03 seen with AI and those that uh have been using AI and um
11:11 the AI stuff, uh, if you don’t have any skills and you use
11:17 AI to build that happened in the very beginning of this year, I saw it
11:22 saw it a couple of times. Hey, I built this wonderful cool app. And then a little while later, the guy comes back
11:27 and goes, “Oh my god, I got this great bill for my API key uh usage because I forgot to uh I didn’t know about
11:34 protecting the API key.” That’s the problem. If you don’t understand, the AI
11:40 will build it in the simplest way possible. It’s like going back to the early years internet when code was first
11:47 created. It wasn’t as secure as it is now because it didn’t have
11:52 it was way easier until all of the scammers, hackers, and the evildoers for
11:58 lack of better terms for them all. All of those showed up and started screwing with the system and uh messing with it.
12:06 And then we had to start building stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger security to the point now where
12:13 security is a real pain in the ass to get anything done. That’s the way it works.
12:20 Now, we’ll pop in here with a couple of comments from different people. We’ve got a whole another thread based upon
12:25 this thread that came from Andrew Hoyer. We’ll be popping into that, but I just want to see a couple of things here.
12:31 One, Matt Mullen popped in on him and said, “Except WordPress itself is a no code, low code, and massively
12:38 successful.” He’s mostly right there. It don’t have to. If you use WordPress at
12:43 its basic level, it doesn’t require any coding. But I kind of think that Kevin here is
12:52 is getting beyond the point of all the people who need websites. And there are
12:57 ton tons of businesses that need websites that can’t spend the five grand. They need to be somewhere around
13:04 a one to $4,000 area. And they’re basic they’re building basic websites to put
13:09 their business out there so that they can be found a little not depend upon all the social media which is constantly
13:16 changing their algorithms and everything else where businesses it still happens to these people build up a business on
13:23 Facebook marketplace or somewhere else and they do something that pisses off the people who run it say the wrong
13:30 thing and boom their whole business is wiped out. they’ve been taken down because they said something that someone
13:35 didn’t like. Still happens. Um, also with uh I haven’t seen one happen in a
13:41 while, but there have been numerous social media companies that get really
13:47 big. People start to build on them and then the company goes, “You know what? We’re folding up shop. We’re done. We don’t have enough money. We’re not
13:53 making enough money with this. We’re done. Bye-bye. You got 30 days to collect your money.” Actually, one
13:58 occurred recently. It wasn’t social media. It was another services or software. It was some sort of online tax
14:05 account and they closed up shop after years of running. People only had
14:13 x amount of time to get their data off there.
14:18 Let’s see where we got here. And of course, Gary comes back. He doesn’t know a single person who could
14:23 come in off the street and build a WordPress website without suffering through an agonizing learning curve.
14:28 Well, that that’s pretty much true. If you come in straight off the street cold, you’d have a tough time doing it.
14:35 Nowhere near. This is one of the reasons why we have the rise of u Shopify and
14:41 Wix and others because people can come in off the street and all drag and drop
14:46 and plug and play and they end up with websites that aren’t nearly as bad as
14:52 the old um Geio Cities, but they’re pretty close. No, Gio Cities was the
14:57 most famous one for that one. Just the Geio Cities days, the cool one.
15:04 See how we’re going here. All right. Um, so this the conversation continued
15:11 for quite some time back and forth here.
15:20 There was a nice uh comment here from general
15:25 generalist generalist Sam and he was going well this isn’t true. The statement of no code low code tools
15:32 don’t actually serve anyone reeks a bias and I get it especially coming from a developer perspective but you need to
15:38 look beyond the WordPress bubbles. Tools like framer web flow are growing fast.
15:43 Yeah, I heard about heard that name a couple of times. So there’s these tools all exist in
15:51 numerous ways. And what I think they don’t take into consideration here is
15:56 they don’t consider the different person’s mindset or how different brains
16:03 can latch on to something to build the same thing. I mean for every problem you
16:09 have on the internet you want to solve there’s at least a dozen ways to solve that problem and come at it from
16:15 multiple angles and because different people see a different path like climbing to the top of a mountain
16:21 there’s path to the top of the mountain some are just harder harder than others and some are wellbeaten paths to the top
16:28 of the mountain so you know some some of them you have to come up the sheer side
16:33 of it but anyway what else do we got here. Let’s see what else is uh poking around
16:40 in this one here. Um the was James Webb. We talked about
16:48 uh theme stuff in
16:54 Yeah. No, couldn’t use it. Um
17:03 divy. That was one. But I keep hearing these new things about Divvy. So, let’s pop into the what
17:09 led me to this thread originally was Angie Hoyer’s uh uh and he was he was
17:16 kicking out to web WordPress devs, weigh in, check out the quoted post and thread. What do you think? Developers
17:22 and agencies that use any number of page editors of no code at risk of being replaced. I think that was something
17:28 else that uh was said in uh Gary’s post there. And this is the big one is that
17:39 the discussion went off this way with all these no code tools. Are you going
17:45 to be replaced as a developer? This is where the thread went here. And no,
17:51 absolutely not. I mean, you can look at everything that has occurred in WordPress over Well, WordPress is now
17:58 21, but I’ve been working with it now for 17
18:03 years. No, we’re they’ve had a lot of changes,
18:10 a lot of new tools, a lot of easy builders come and go. Um, some of them
18:15 have managed to stick and become better and better. A lot of people have abandoned it to go off to other places,
18:22 but many of them come back to WordPress. Biggest reason why is
18:28 it’s a low point of entry for WordPress. It’s a very low point of entry far as
18:34 cost go. And that meaning in that aspect there, it’s for those that have time on
18:41 their hands and not a lot of money. If you have time and not a lot of money,
18:47 WordPress is the best place to start building a website for your business. Or
18:53 if you’re looking to build a business and have a lot of time and no money, WordPress is an excellent place to build
18:59 a business once you find your it.
19:04 But what that allows is for those that are building a website for say their business, we’re going to go with the
19:11 with client version of WordPress. And
19:17 I’ve I’ve had a few businesses that have become clients of mine. They started out doing it themselves and they used
19:23 WordPress to do it and that allowed them to get started. They built fast sites
19:29 kind of ugly, little problems, little problematic here, but they managed to get it up and keep it going. And
19:36 eventually as their business grows, they realize that they don’t want to do their website anymore. They don’t have time to
19:42 do it. All they want to do is make sure it’s kept up to date. Maybe they want to improve it with a more professional
19:48 design to match their business as it’s growing. Professionalism. So they end up, you know, out to developers to do
19:56 this. They find themselves a developer through recommendations or online or
20:05 and so that’s what’s going to happen. And this will continue to happen along that line. It will never replace the
20:11 developers. They will always be there at various levels. There’s always going to be developers that produce the $500
20:18 websites and there’s always going to be developers that produce a what do they charge for
20:26 big ones I heard that millions of dollars to build out a web. So, and still on WordPress.
20:36 WordPress scales depending on what you need. Now granted, as you scale, you
20:41 might have to scale up from the shared hosting onto your VPN hosting onto your
20:46 own server. That makes it even better. So you you’ll as you scale, you scale.
20:54 Now, one of the things that I saw through all this articles in here, there
20:59 was a bit of discussion came back in about businesses not needing a website
21:05 and that they can live with social media. Well, that’s not true at all. And um
21:13 and what that does is people do need a web presence aside from
21:21 Google Places, Facebook Marketplace, Facebook or Twitter or others that can
21:26 help you find some people, but it won’t help you find enough. If you have your
21:32 own website, you now have what used to be a yellow pages ad. This is the one
21:39 argument I have to give some businesses, especially if they know about the yellow pages because well, many people don’t
21:46 know about the pages now from the very few out there that still have a couple of yellow page books hanging. I remember
21:52 when they used to be so thick you use them for booster seat, small kids to table. Last time I saw one, it was
21:58 thinner than a uh weekend comic book. So they they just they yellow pages, they
22:06 really screwed up at the beginning of the internet. But that’s a whole another rabbit hole to go down. But I had a
22:13 business back in the 90s, automotive shop, and I had to buy a yellow page ad
22:18 so people find me. Yellow page ads back then, this 90s. My yellow page ad for
22:25 eight page ad used to cost me $400 a month, some ridiculous sum for
22:33 the small smallalish yellow page ad, you know, to have a decent, you know, you
22:38 got a free listing, but your name was just listed. You need ad to stand out. And that’s kind of a good comparison
22:45 for Google Places, Facebook. They’re they’re like they’re like free listings in the yellow pages and people have to
22:51 scroll through them or go use them to find you. Whereas your website is your
22:57 big yellow page ad. And back in the day you budgeted in anywhere from $200 to
23:05 $1,000 a month depending on how big of an ad you wanted into your monthly marketing budget. This is what a lot of
23:12 businesses have lost in their building of a business is they don’t put this into
23:18 their marketing budget for managing their website. A website can cost you as little as, you know,
23:25 15 bucks a month in hosting, 24 bucks for a domain name, and uh whatever time
23:30 you put into your own website. But if you want it professionally done, you got to hire a professional, and they can run
23:36 you as much as 75 bucks a month for upkeep, maintenance, and SEO. Actually, SEO costs way more than 70 a month. But
23:43 the point being is you need a professional help you get beyond the basics and let you have more time than
23:50 money. That’s always a tough one when you’re starting out with a business.
23:57 Let’s see what else do I have in here on I’m rummaging on this.
24:04 All right, I’ve got some summaries on these.
24:11 Let’s go with a summary from uh Andrew’s post and
24:19 his summary. The summary on this is he’s quoting from uh Kevin’s post who argued low code no
24:26 code era is over. It’s not. It’s never it’s not going away. It’s going to be here for quite some time to go.
24:33 always be new tools that people will be able to use.
24:39 And he’s predicting that uh tools such as simplistic page builders will replace in
24:46 the AI era. Well, we’re already seeing the attempts at AI to replace those
24:52 tools and those attempts at AI replacing those tools are not
24:57 overly effective and they are going to create problems down the road. I’m looking forward to the day when all of
25:04 the AI mess and they have to hire developers like us to come in and clean
25:10 up that mess, which is what’s always enjoyable when people do this.
25:15 And uh as Blake says, uh sticking to those
25:20 outdated models, PHP themes are at a higher risk. AI and page builders like Elementor will thrive. Balancing pro
25:27 features with ease for edit. Well, that is one thing that Elementor is doing well and Elementor is
25:34 bringing out a new type of editor they’ve been working on in beta. I’ve
25:39 only briefly touched it. I put it fully up on one of my dev sites and see what
25:45 going to do, but it’s going to make accessing the code a whole lot easier.
25:51 Going to be it’s it’s going to be using class bases.
26:02 One of my devices has all right. I think that’s enough
26:08 babbling in this particular zone here. So, where I’m going to go now,
26:15 see where I’m at here. I always put them in a nice order until
26:20 I look at them. And of course, this weekend was a absolute utter chaos.
26:27 as the wedding went on. It was storming, raining. It was just a it was a rough
26:32 weekend. So, I didn’t have time to finish all my notes till this morning for the show. All right, here’s one
26:37 thing. U some news bites, couple of news bites for this week. Now, I’ve got a
26:43 news bite here from Mullen WG doing an interview for
26:48 Search Engine Journal. And in this Q&A session at uh Word Camp
26:54 Canada, um Mullerweg discussed strategies for protecting the platform’s open-source ethos from profit driven
27:02 companies that may not contribute back to the community. And my big problem
27:07 with this sort of thing is that everybody in the WordPress community is
27:14 profit driven in some way, shape, or form. uh unless they’re well even pure
27:19 information people start ads on there. Everyone’s profit driven in one way, shape or form. They’re profit driven for
27:25 cash or they’re profit profit driven for recognition or they’re profit driven for something. But at any rate, thing is is
27:34 he was outlining ways to incentivize positive behavior, including enforcing
27:39 GPL compliance, which isn’t overly hard to enforce. And you got to remember
27:44 that’s a it’s so vague the GPL in that you know
27:50 have the companies out there that buy up the pro GPL licenses strip out the code that
27:57 requires the license and then they resell them which to me is absolutely wrong but that’s about ethics not the
28:04 license boils down to the ethics for license
28:10 it’s always a problem and Today’s you know he’s talking about
28:16 voting with your wallet by supporting ethical companies and discussion
28:22 highlighted tensions in the WordPress ecosystem balancing community values commercial motivations suggesting
28:29 proactive measures like certifications to promote good actors. Well, who defines a good actor? You know who
28:36 defines who’s doing the right thing? Well, whoever is in control of the switches there at word.org or defines it
28:44 um as I’m a I’m a perfect example of that myself in that I am not welcome on
28:50 the word or website took away all my credentials and hoping
28:56 to go away so I’ve stayed away from them years but I’m still doing lots of good
29:02 things in the community I still believe in this software I still believe there’s
29:07 the ability to make a living for all kinds of people
29:13 in here and you don’t have to be involved into the WordPress community of
29:18 the WordPress.org community. You can be involved in the other aspects of the WordPress community podcast for one.
29:25 It’s been going now for 16 years and once upon a time I used to take the
29:30 reviews and I used to publish them over at.org or which is why I got banned
29:36 because I used to put my reviews there and I used to mention in a review, hey, I reviewed your show, your plugin on my
29:41 show. They didn’t like that much advertising. I guess that’s one of the things that annoyed me most about this.
29:48 It’s like, well, wouldn’t they like to know everything I said instead of just a
29:53 little snippet here about how we showcased it? But no, they at any rate,
29:59 that’s what they do. They decide who is who is contributing the most based upon
30:04 how much money you put in there. And they also I haven’t looked into the framework but I guess that contribute
30:10 five the five for five or something like that is based upon certain types of
30:16 inputs into WordPress doesn’t include other WordPress input such as a podcast
30:22 which shares the news and promotes and showcases how easy and good WordPress
30:28 is. One of my big reasons for WordPress is because it helps you maintain control of all of your data.
30:38 See? Yeah, we just lost a thread on that one, but that’s okay.
30:46 Coffee. That’s what it is. We need more coffee.
30:52 We’re blending the beans today from Kicking Horse Coffee. The jolly ass coffee and the smart ass cop
31:01 between the two asses. It should make a hole. All right, let’s see what we’ve got going on here.
31:13 So, this is an interesting article. It does have a It does have um some of
31:19 Matt’s spiciest comments from last year when he called out WP Engine as a bad
31:26 actor specifically, but he called them. He actually used those ter managed to
31:32 capture that. So, we’ve got a lot going on in this area here and we’ll see what
31:37 happens. And of course, there’s been been some action in the uh in the lawsuit between
31:44 between WordPress and WP Engine that’s been going on. Uh they added in a couple of things that this week. So, you’ll
31:50 have to just go find the news. Thinking of finding that news, I’ve got something that everyone might enjoy. I don’t know
31:57 how I tripped across it. Probably through. But, um it’s called Feedland
32:05 wp.feedland.org. and they have the latest up tothem
32:10 minutee news feeds from numerous places so you can always find whatever is
32:16 happening in like this one here was loaded up a little while ago load they
32:22 got WP Minute um search engine journal open channels FM WP Mayor Gutenberg
32:30 times WordPress diver uh Dave verse feedber
32:35 times um WordPress Matt Mullen wake feed the iconic feed and coming to iconic
32:41 here in just a few and more. There’s just a lot of really great things in
32:47 here and it’s a really excellent way to catch up and see what happens. The last one there.
32:53 Yeah. 445. I didn’t load it.
33:11 There it is. Okay. So, it’s still the same feed. All right. The feed hasn’t been updated yet. But anyway, go check out this feed for some news. You’re
33:18 smart and jolly today. You bet. Feel
33:23 free to comment, people. I’m always up for comments to help change the thread of where this is going. We got five
33:29 people watching. Come on. Lots and lots of comments. How you going, Hemmedian? Nice to see
33:35 you in here. Sorry Amber’s not here. She’s off on her honeymoon. Those of you that didn’t catch the
33:41 beginning of the show, reason I’m doing this one alone this week is because Amber’s gone on her honeymoon with her
33:46 new hubby. They got married over the week. All right.
33:53 All right. We’re going to dive now into a new plugin and I’ll showcase that
33:59 plugin here. I’ve already loaded it up on my dev site, but everyone knows how to install a plugin, so we don’t need to
34:04 explain that. Let’s go talk in on this. Now, this is from Iconic Nick. Icon
34:11 Nick. I IONIC. I’ve been calling him Iconic Nick. Iconic. That’s it. Iconic. He’s got
34:17 Iconic. I’ve got it. All right. He built a plugin to curate WordPress plugins and
34:24 suggest that you use it and I think you should probably use it too if you’re
34:29 looking for some of those hidden gems. He’s got a really great thing, a really great post here on it. Um, talking about
34:37 the 60,000 plug-in problem. Well, that’s only the ones that are listed at
34:42 wordpress.org. That doesn’t include the ones that are listed in numerous other
34:48 places across the web. My guess is we’re roughly over 120 PL, thousand plug
34:55 for WordPress. Some are good, some are bad, some are scary as hell, some are fantastic, and some have claimed the
35:02 crown jewels. And because of the claiming of the crown jewels, it’s near impossible to find the others. So at any
35:09 rate what he did he built a plugin called hidden gems and he also built
35:14 another plugin called plug-in curator. Now I haven’t tested his plug-in curator
35:20 plugin. And what is plug-in curator one? We’ll talk about that one real real quickly. What it does is when you load
35:27 it up, it allows you to create your own customized JSON file for plugins that
35:34 you think your clients should see when they’re working on their WordPress
35:40 website installed plugins, recommending the ones you think they should load up.
35:46 The way he’s got this plug-in designed, and I was thinking about it initially, I saw somebody made a comment and say,
35:51 “Hey, can you make it so that JSON file is local?” but he’s got the files so that it’s remote to the plugin. And I
35:58 thought, well, it could, but then that would take away from what you’re going to do. What you as a agency or web
36:07 hosting provider to providing hosting to multiple WordPress websites, you can have this installed on every version of
36:15 WordPress that gets installed on your servers. And with your own JSON file,
36:20 you can update and change file that is always fed into people. Let’s go take a
36:25 quick look at that one real. Now, that one there, it’s available over at um GitHub. Links will be in the show
36:32 notes when the show notes are public. And this one here is you can download
36:39 the the files from GitHub, install them up there. He’s got a really good readme file, tells you how to use it, and tells
36:45 you how to build the JSON file. from his post which you can find in
36:50 here. He’s got a link to a his own customized version of the JSON file.
36:56 Here we go. You can see the c his customized version of JSON file which you can use if you’d like and gives you
37:04 a starting point. So at any rate, you might want to go check this one out. So the one I’m going
37:11 to talk about real briefly here is the other one which is
37:19 going to talk about is hidden gems plugin. And this one is really kind of
37:25 cool. I really kind of like how this one works. It helps you dig up plugins that are got few installs and other options
37:32 with it. Again, files for that are contained up on GitHub. So, you’ll have
37:38 to go download it from GitHub and then upload it and install it to your WordPress website. That I’m not going to
37:43 be going into. Okay.
37:49 All right. So, but I do have it loaded up here on my dev site.
37:56 And in my dev site under added plugins, I have added it all up there. And what it
38:02 does for you when you go to add new plugins, you’ve got your usual featured ones, which are limited to what
38:07 WordPress says you have. Now, if you use the other plugin, the plug-in curator, I
38:15 think it replaces the featured. Yes, it it replaces the featured with your
38:21 recommendations for plugin here. Uh, then of course you’ve got the usual popular one, which is pretty close to
38:28 the same ones as the ones they feature. Looks like it’s mildly changing. recommended ones which of course okay
38:35 it’s the recommended defeat which are almost favorites which if you have a
38:41 WordPress.org or username account and you save your own list of feature
38:47 plugins and toss that username in here and get the favorites from
38:53 not sure if it works else I haven’t used that in years I had built up a really nice
38:59 my account then you’ve got the hidden gems one and it comes up and first loads
39:06 up some random ones until you start to sort and what it did was it searched for
39:11 any that had less than 100k installs, any star rating, and sorted by the
39:17 newest in here. So, these are newest ones in here. Let’s see. Take a look at
39:23 got here. Um, 19 minutes ago. So, this plugin was just released into the
39:29 WordPress world. Last updated 19 minutes ago. Um
39:39 Um, okay. So called the smart autocomplete address
39:45 autocomplete address plugin completing addresses
39:53 here. Oh, Woo Commerce. So at any rate, you can use it for
39:59 finding all kinds of interesting plugins that don’t exist normally such as digital
40:05 a mailer audit wave SEO. Audit wave SEO. Okay, so
40:11 it’s a new SEO
40:17 added zero day. Yeah, these are all the newest zero days ago. These are all
40:22 brand new into the WordPress repo. And once upon a time, there used to be a tab for all these plugins that added into
40:29 repo. So you could always go see what was new. That was one of the ways we used to showcase plugins on have to use
40:35 this to dig out new plug use.
40:41 On the whole, it’s looking pretty fantastic. So, at any rate, it’s a very simple plugin. You can use it to search
40:47 for any terms you want. We’ll go search for security plugins and pops up a whole
40:55 bunch of underused security plugins. Drop it down.
41:02 10,000 installs for gives us the same ones.
41:08 my newest updated. There you go. There’s a neat
41:14 one. Guard dog security and sight lock. Super hidden gem. All right. Why did it
41:21 get a super hidden? So, he’s got a tag on here that tells you it’s a super hidden gem and hidden gem. Take a quick
41:29 look. Art dog is uh keep their installations clean and
41:34 secure. talk here
41:41 act user to
41:46 okay I would have to go through and read all this but like a interesting security plugin
41:53 got 70 active installs of this plugin so nobody knows it exists got the other one here customer email verification for
41:60 commerce this one could be very useful for people WP factory
42:06 or their plug 8,000 installs
42:14 but customer email verification for Woo Commerce. So going to verify the I
42:19 assume it’s going to verify the email address in Woo.
42:26 So this is a very useful plugin. I’ll make sure to be bringing it to regular
42:31 shows to uh recommend it out for a while until it’s more installs. And of course,
42:36 you have to go manually install this. It’s not available through the WordPress repo. Got to go get it over at GitHub.
42:46 All right. to
42:52 take a midtow break,
43:00 but keep you guys entertained. Play one of my
43:06 [Music]
43:24 Oh yeah.
43:30 [Music] Don’t claim to know your story. Don’t
43:38 even have m in the search for glory. Gone with them sacred rules of old. They
43:44 went missing. Down highway 49.
43:49 [Music] Devils at the crossroads sitting doing
43:56 time. Preacher man discovered passed down from
44:03 saint to sage. Like a kindhearted lover who’s been lost on this stage went
44:09 missing down Highway 49.
44:15 [Music] Devil’s at the crossroads sitting to his
44:21 side. [Music] Come on now.
44:30 [Music]
44:54 Not saying they are the answer. Not saying they’re right or wrong. I ain’t no texting dancer or loser where I
45:01 belong when missing down high 49. Highway 49.
45:12 Devils at the crossroy [Music]
45:19 and the trigger to see who done the crime. Captain pulled the trigger. Guess
45:25 who’s doing time? They went missing. Down high 49.
45:35 Devil’s at the crossroads. Is he yours or is he mine?
45:41 Is he yours or is it mine? [Music]
46:12 Don’t claim to know your story. Don’t even have mouth in our search for glory.
46:18 Gone with them sacred rules of all we’re missing.
46:24 Down high 49.
46:29 [Music] Devils at the crossroads sitting doing town.
46:39 Devils at a crossroads. Joker doing fine.
46:44 Justin doing [Music]
46:55 There we go. We’re back. Thanks everyone. It’s mid- winter sun low on the horizon now.
47:05 It’s a nice sunny gorgeous here on southern Vancou. [Music]
47:15 Always nice when the sun comes back out. All right, let’s see where I’ve got. I
47:20 don’t have much else. That pretty much covers up what we’re wanted to showcase in today’s show. Um, I wanted to, you
47:29 know, mention a couple of others. You know, you might want to, if you’re not following him already, go follow, um,
47:37 uh, Icon Nick Icon Nick. Go call, go follow
47:43 Nick. Nick is his name. Go follow him on, uh, Twitter. working really hard to me people. Now,
47:50 Nick gets a lot of attention, but then he’s a pretty bus fellow and he’s he’s
47:56 put out a lot of uh decent plugins other
48:01 weeks last couple of months. He’s So, another
48:06 one little underrated, nobody really follows them. Um, you know, go give them
48:12 some love. They’ve only got 320 followers. WP Security Ninja. They have
48:17 a lot they put out a lot of really good security tips for managing your website.
48:24 I also did an interview with them way back. Go dig through our archives to find it.
48:32 So, go check them out. If you know anyone you want to recommend, send them
48:37 to me. We’ll make sure they get into the show notes and showcase the different people. We’re trying really hard to
48:44 surface the hidden gems of WordPress, underutilized, the people who have been
48:51 uh sidelined or sent off to the to the benches for lack of a better term. Right
48:58 now, I can go back to about 10 years ago with this show.
49:06 Wish I could remember it, but I had I had showcased 12 years ago. It showcased
49:12 a me that was brand new, hot off the present would have wiped the face of
49:18 every membership existed at the time and I imagine if they kept growing they
49:23 would be the number one problem was is he didn’t have a very
49:32 good he wasn’t he’s like me not very good at the politics
49:37 dealing with all the and He managed to off probably the same
49:43 I pissed off and uh they sidelined him and he kept trying so hard and I did my
49:50 best to showcase the stuff on my but then one day him and I were emailing
49:55 back he says you know what I’m going to go get a job doing something else I’m not
50:01 he walked away from I don’t know if he ever came back to coding but it was a
50:07 shame to lose that kind of talent because of the politics of
50:12 or forums. That’s where what going to look for forums in WordPress
50:18 more than just the plugins and other things.
50:25 And from my own personal experience, there’s some jerks there and they are not forgiving at all. Even when you try
50:33 to make amends, they are like they get on their high go. And there’s still people that about the ways they’ve
50:40 been treated in it, which is a shame. And that just goes with the whole
50:45 system. At any rate, that’s my little rant for
50:51 the end here and how when we had that article about Matt talking about how to
50:56 improve WordPress, the best way he can improve WordPress is start by improving on the organization
51:04 volunteers and semi-paid volunteers. He
51:10 Oh, well, no apologies at all, Hemdian. Hey, look, you you’re holding on to the number one
51:16 crown right now. This gives you the opportunity to completely steal that crown from Amber because it’s based upon
51:22 a cumulative score. I’ve figured out because of one show that I popped into
51:27 from time make a couple of comments and all of a sudden I’ve got the I’ve got a cr I’ve got the number one crown and
51:34 there’s lots of other people coming. some reason I frown with only a few.
51:39 Well, hopefully it gets you well. At any rate, this is really all I’ve got. Um,
51:46 I’ve managed to push this show to a whole 48 minutes today and by the time I wrap it up, we might even be pushing 50
51:52 minutes. But, thank you everyone for showing up. And for those of you that showed up late to the show, the reason
51:58 you’re listening to my voice and my voice alone is because Amber has gone, they wouldn’t even tell us where they
52:04 were going for their honeymoon. They’re just saying, “We’re leaving. We’re going off the grid. They’re unplugging their devices.” So, they’re hiding somewhere
52:11 uh where nobody really knows where they’ve gone. They they just vanished. Oh, good for them. Anyway, and it was a
52:18 really great wedding. For those that want to see Amber’s wedding, you can go to lynoverall
52:25 wedding.com and that’s ln. Go check out their website which I’ll be
52:32 putting up a whole deal that I took later tomorrow. But the
52:38 live stream, we live stream her wedding, friends and family that couldn’t make it. And for anyone else in the world
52:44 that wants to enjoy a good Celtic Scandinavian wedding, what it was Celtic Scandinavian
52:51 wedding. Go check it out, folks. It’s a really cool thing. And that’s really all I’ve
52:57 got today. So to push this and uh say thanks for showing up.
53:04 We will talk at you next week. Next week I am doing an interview show. I who I am
53:18 a list of come on brain. Where’s my brain? I have
53:25 a brain there that’s supposed to be making comments for me.
53:34 Oh, are they resolved in alphabetical order? Well, never because I I but I
53:41 don’t think her username is Amber. Something else cancelled an M. So,
53:48 if it’s her username.
53:54 All right. So, anyway, I do have an interview next week and I can’t find my listing.
54:01 Tune in next week. That one won’t work. Um, and listen to
54:07 the interview. It should be a good one. I always do a nice job of preparing for the with that being said,
54:15 we’re going to uh close out the show with a little bit of music and we’ll talk to you guys next week.
54:26 Time stands still.
54:36 A quarter after midnight and I’m watching the wall.
54:43 Sometimes I feel so uptight. I just can’t sleep at all.
54:50 Every day doing the same old thing. We’re losing time.
54:56 The weekend comes. We got to have some fun and rewind.
55:04 These are the days of thunder. We’re going to make time stand still. We
55:11 got to feel the hunger hanging over the edge just to taste the thrill.
55:24 I feel the rope tightening, choking off our air.
55:31 We need to grab some lightning. Friday’s almost here.
55:38 Caught in a web. We need to cut this thread. We’re hanging by.
55:45 Where is it? said you have to be half dead to survive.
55:52 These are the days of thunder. We’re going to make time stand still. We
55:59 got to feel the hunger hanging over the edge just to taste the thrill.
56:06 [Music]
56:19 These are the days of thunder. We’re going to make time stand still. We
56:26 got to feel the hunger. Hanging over the edge just to taste the thrill. These are
56:33 the days of thunder. We’re going to make time stand still. We
56:40 got to feel the hunger hanging over the edges to taste the thrill.
56:52 These are the days of thunder.
57:03 All righty, folks. That’s all I’ve got. Take care now. Bye-bye. Oh my god, that is amazing.
57:10 Oh no.