Thoughts for the Developer Experience at WordCamp
I’ve been thinking a bit about the developer track at WCNYC. I’d like to share my opinions, even if it is a bit early. Would love reactions, and your opinions as well.
Foundations Day
The idea of a foundations day before the classic WordCamp day appeals to me; that can be the place to send novice developers. We could have a 101 day on Friday somewhere small, which we’ve spoken about. The cream of the crop can teach some sessions here – “Setting up a local environment” with Brad Williams; “Introduction to Version Control” with John James Jacoby. It’s a bit mind-boggling to me we could offer such a valuable experience for next to nothing.
Developer Track @ WordCamp Day
I’d like to see talks that really push the envelope in a developer track. I’d like to hear expert developers talk about what they’re spending their time thinking about and doing, rather than what might be palatable. Whether or not they’re good speakers matters less to me; I think folks doing really interesting things will be more worthwhile than someone who gives a good presentation. I want to hear Andrew Nacin talking about WordPress as a Backbone app with a RESTful API and an agnostic server-side back-end, rather than talking about how to use WP_Query properly.
I might even suggest we pick leaders in the field that we can ask to apply and curate talks of these sorts, as well as an open inbox for applications from everyone else to sift through.
Contributor Day
Contribute days are historically a bit unorganized, or seen from a different perspective, are self-organized. It might be nice to check-in early on with Nacin, Helen, and others to figure out if we can plan out contributor day a bit more beforehand to give a more wholesome experience to those involved.
In Conclusion
I’d like to push the boundaries of our developer content. WordCamp developer tracks normally cater to novices, which makes sense for Lancaster, PA, where novice developers go to learn their first time about git. Being NYC, we have the right to offer a thought-leaders sort of event.
I’m interested in conference programming that is essentially a developer summit, which asks: What are the real issues we face today in our industry? What are serious technical hurtles do we face? What are some interesting solutions to the most complex of problems we face as WordPress developers?
I may be off base here, and not respecting what WordCamp is for, so please call me out if so. Should WordCamp content be educational in a general way, intended for novices? Would it be rude to have such advanced content in the developer track at WordCamp, especially if we boil down to 2-3 tracks?