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Interview with Rémi Corson – WordPress Developer and Woo Ninja

    Tahseen Kazi
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Rémi Corson – WordPress Developer and Ninjineer and WooThemes

If there is one striking aspect about Rémi Corson, it definitely has to be his diverse experience in the WordPress domain.

He has gone from being a graduate in Business Administration to being a developer of 50+ WordPress plugins and all this in a span of…oh wait I do not know since when. As a matter of fact, neither does he. 😛 In his own words, “I started working with WordPress a long time ago, I can’t even remember when I started using it!”. Along with developing many premium plugins he has also avidly contributed to the WordPress community with 18 free plugin you’ll find on wordpress.org.  

Apart from developing plugins he has also been a consistent blogger at wpexplorer, wp.tutsplus, wpkube, and WooThemes always writing about all things WordPress and helping out the vast WordPress community with his diverse development experience.

Wait a minute there’s more. He’s a Ninjineer at WooThemes where he provides support for their various plugins. And when he is not doing all of the above you’ll usually find him playing the guitar or practicing kitesurf.

Simply put, let’s see what this guy from Paris who is all about WordPress has to tell us today.

What would be your recommendations for those just starting out with WordPress development?

WordPress development can be pretty easy, at least at the beginning, so if you have an idea, just try to create it. There are tons of awesome tutorials on the web, and most of the time you’ll find the answer to your question. So, make sure you’re comfortable with PHP first, and then read the Codex. Finally: don’t be afraid! WordPress is a community and everyone is likely to help!

interview-with-R+¬mi-corsonIf you had to divide your development process into 5 steps, what would the steps be?

First of all, each time I create a plugin its’ basically because I need it or because I think the idea is cool and the development can be challenging. So, the 1st step is to find a cool thing to build, then I try to see which parts of the code I already created can be re-used, no need to re-invent the wheel for each plugin. The following step is coding new stuff. The most important thing here is to always try to do a better code than the code I did during my last coding session. To be honest, it’s crucial because it’s what makes you a better dev. The next step is beta testing: I tweet something and right away I select a few people to test my code. Final step is bug fixing, testing, and deployment!

What has working with WooThemes taught you?

Working for WooThemes is a great opportunity to be in the middle of a team made of awesome people. So basically I learn something new pretty much everyday day! The most important thing that working with Woo has taught me is to solve the world’s problems. That can sound a bit weird, but that’s what we try to do every day. We want a better Internet, we want better users experiences, and we want people to be happy! Providing clean and simple, yet powerful, solutions is our aim.

interview-with-R+¬mi-corson_2How important is documentation to you for the plugins you’ve built?

Building a plugin, a theme or a software leads to doing support. That’s how things work. You can’t expect to release a product and not provide help. So, the better your documentation is, the fewer tickets you’ll receive. Updating the docs regularly is the key to success. Each time a customer asks for something that is not in the docs, I update it so that other customers can take advantages of it.tickets you’ll receive. Updating the docs regularly is the key to success. Each time a customer asks for something that is not in the docs, I update it so that other customers can take advantages of it.

Can good support save a poorly built plugin?

This is definitely not something that should happen. If your product is bad, make it better.

interview-with-R+¬mi-corson_3What do you think about contributing to the WordPress community? How do you contribute?

Contributing to WordPress community is necessary. We have to keep in mind that WordPress is free and using solutions like WooCommerce can make you earn money. In other words, you don’t spend a dollar and you can start earning money. This is pretty awesome, so the minimum is to spend some time to contribute to the community, it must be a win-win relationship. At WooThemes we are given some time to contribute, this is pretty nice! I usually do Codex translations, but I also talk at many WordCamps, this is a great way to meet people and share knowledges!

That’s not all though. There’s one last bit of interesting information about Rémi Corson. When asked what would he like to be if not a WordPress developer here’s what he said;

“I would love to work with wood. My brother buys entire trees and builds ships with them, I think it’s incredible and I would have loved doing it. Maybe in a couple years?”

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Tahseen Kazi

Tahseen Kazi

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