I’m sad. Very sad. I’ve just missed my first WordCamp. Not a local WordCamp (I was just up in Sacramento for a local one) but the International version. For those that don’t know, it’s been in San Francisco for the last ten years and that’s made it incredibly convenient to me (I’m 30 minutes away). This year they started moving it around the world. Next year it’ll be in Philly again. I’ve been spoiled with it happening each year in my back yard.
One of the big features of the event is a keynote speech by Matt Mullenberg (Yes I did that on purpose, you’ll have to watch the video for it to make sense)
Here’s the session but the other news is that WordPress 4.4 is being released today.
With WordPress 4.4 I promise, the details are going to make your eyes roll back in your head. Not because you’ll think they are so freaking fabulous – but because they’ll sound like utter ‘developer speak’ and you’ll click away.
The big one is the introduction of the WP REST API
Wait! Don’t click away yet! Let me explain…
REST stands for Representational State Transfer and API stands for Application Programming Interface. Not that you needed to know that but you can go ahead and roll your eyes a little bit.
For you, the API part just means that soon it’ll be easier to drop a link in a post and have that do something. Have you noticed that when you are writing a post and you drop a link to a YouTube video it’ll automatically embed that video? Think about that but with so much more! That’s what the new REST API will bring to the table. What kind of things? How about a slideshare? A song you like on Spotify? Soon, virtually anything that you find out there can be shown and displayed in your site.
Ok, that’s somewhat cool – right?
The opposite is true too! Virtually anything that you create on your site can then be pumped outside of the WordPress site to a 3rd party. That starts with both posts and pages. When I build sites today I’m also building new custom post types like FAQs, Testimonials, Portfolios, and Listings. These will be easy to push out as well. This will be more in-depth than just sharing a post to Facebook.
There’s also a bit more. I saw a cool quote that will give you a hint…
In short, the API lets you do anything the WordPress admin area is capable of, only remotely, without manually logging into your site and including the non-WordPress content.
I won’t expand on that much but I will say that there’s quite a few things you might be using that will soon they’ll be working inside WordPress as well as WordPress will be working inside them.
Personally what I picked up from the speech is that Javascript is going to be huge.
I’m going to need to put on my learning hat.
I’m excited about the future that the new version may bring. You should be too.
Did you make it to the bottom of this post with rolling your eyes? Almost?
Here’s what’s changed if you really want your eyes to roll.
Oh, here’s a gratuitous pic of Matt and myself at one of the past WordCamps (I think 2011)
He's an avid hockey fan, rides a mountain bike, sometimes rides a road bike, has a few motorcycles (he had a really fast one, bought a cool orange one, rode a really slow one, and now,a perfect "BDR Weapon"). If that isn't enough, he makes cheese and sourdough bread, loves strong beer and good red wine, and poorly plays the Mandolin.
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