 My name is Evan Volgas and I'm going to be talking about things you always wanted to know about WordPress But we're afraid to ask and I actually have to apologize to you guys because I had to make a few slight amendments I was talking to some people today and And also yesterday and I realized I was missing a few slides The first thing I want to go ahead and mention is what is an API? It's the term that gets thrown around a lot. There's a lot of API's in WordPress itself the database API etc When we're talking about an API if you're not familiar think of like a soda machine when you're interacting with a soda machine You walk up you put a dollar bill in the soda machine you press a button that you know Gives you a soda that that's an interface that's designed to allow you to interact with this machine And that's exactly what an API is like, but it's an eight, but it's this interaction for Software so if you want to Interact with Facebook for example via WordPress use an API to do that and really if you just kind of have a mental model of There's an interface that lets you talk to a machine. That's where you are another term that I've heard a lot but I don't know that is is quite as familiar to everyone is accessibility and when you're when you hear people talk about accessibility what they're really saying is You know there are elevators in this building when you want to go upstairs to get lunch You can take an elevator or you can take the stairs you can take the escalator But it's convenient and it's accessible to everyone the web is not like that So accessibility is really about making elevators for the web Just if that hasn't already sort of come across and there's been a lot of talks about it But when we go ahead and throw that out there as well and with that What is WordPress? So WordPress is a database. It's some PHP. It's some files and at this point we could be talking about Facebook We literally could be I mean Facebook is nothing more than PHP a database and some files But the thing that makes WordPress WordPress is there are rules Sort of how everything ties together and one of the most in my opinion one of the most important rules In WordPress is this thing that's called the template hierarchy and I'm assuming you guys can read So I'm not going to even try to read from my slides because that's boring but when we're talking about the template hierarchy what we're saying is There are rules in WordPress that if you're on the front page Load this template if you're on a blog post load that one If you've never heard of the template hierarchy, it's one of the best It's the literally probably the best 15 minutes you'll ever spend just reading over how that thing works It's quite remarkable and it really helps your mental model Another thing hooks you guys may have heard people talk about hey There are these hooks and there's two different types of them. There's actions and there's filters This is going to take a little bit more time to be honest with you The difference between the two is actions do stuff and filters modify stuff Filter, you know, if you come from a database background filters seem like they maybe get rid of things Like I want to filter people out of this room and you know You think that they get rid of things where they keep things from happening, but they don't necessarily do that They just modify things and there's some great Actually a fellow who's here his name is Otto It's not actually his name is his handle Samuel Wood. I believe is his name He was a great example of when to use a hook or when to use a Filter versus when to use an action and and sort of how to keep that, you know straight in your mind Read this article. It's it's a fantastic article that should you know probably not to read it like, you know Five or six times to really wrap your mind around it, but it's worth reading So the thing is Wordpress, I mean, it's just a database. It's some files. It's some PHP big deal And there's these rules the thing is if you were to print out all the rules Just just the hooks alone just the you know, literally here your actions here your filters It'd be about 50 pages Which is why I want to segue into what is doing development with WordPress? It has nothing to do With actually knowing all of those 50 pages of document I mean, that's why the documentation exists. We need to read it as developers We have to go there and you know make sense of this stuff And one of the things I've noticed being a developer is when I walk into a room sometimes people like oh I could never do what you do That's not true. And if I could dispel any one thing today It's that literally everyone in this room could be should be maybe you know if you want to Contributing to the code of wordpress. It's actually it's not that hard. You really can do this and you really should give it a shot It's quite fun It really is not about knowing everything on the planet. It's understanding that there are a couple of rules The template hierarchy for example that you've got these hooks and then it's about getting in there and just building stuff and trying it And that's where you know everything that I've said up into this point has not been an opinion It's all been you know, this is in fact what wordpress is This is in fact with a template hierarchy is and now I'm gonna go sort of into opinion land Please you know bear this in mind. This is an opinion But when you're building or when you're trying to get into developing with wordpress I really think that one of the best ways to do that is to use something called VVV Which is called it stands for varying vagrant vagrants It's so difficult to say The the nice thing about it if you guys have ever tried to install wordpress on your computer You've maybe read an article about hey go use map go use ex amp go use wamp and so forth It's incredibly painful and you read this blog post and you're like, oh, it's a five minute install And none of us do it in five minutes the first time. It's like a five hour install. Maybe Varying vagrant vagrants is is probably the coolest thing you will ever find it literally just works And you'll be up and running Within minutes, you'll be able to start developing wordpress on your local machine With that I guess two notes What now I've got some suggestions for things that you could do to start getting into wordpress I mean again, what are we talking about? We're talking about a database some files some PHP You can get it up and running on your computer very easily and you know, it's it's simple, right? It's just a Little bit of PHP database, but it's what built wordpress. It's in fact what built Facebook These are very powerful things and you have access to them and you really you know, it's fun You should play with them with that. That's that's actually my talk. So