🐼 2018 — Year in Review

Howdy! 👋 I started writing my year in reviews to keep track of the progress that I am making over the years here at my blog. This is going to be my second one in the series. You can check out the last one over here.

👉 On a side note, this is my first post in Gutenberg and I am really enjoying the writing experience in this shinny new WordPress editor.

For those of you who don’t know me, here are a few things that you might wanna know, I am

• A full-time open source products developer
• Regular WordPress Core Contributor
• Principal Developer at WP White Security
• Digital Ocean and WordPress Meetups Organizer
• TV Shows and Movies Fanatic

So without further ado, here are some of the highlights of the things that happened in 2018.

📟 local-wpcli

This is one of the most important projects that I did last year. local-wpcli is a tool written in Node.js to help developers automate the process of configuring WP-CLI with the locally hosted websites of Local by Flywheel.

My sole purpose for developing this CLI was to learn JavaScript ES6+ and Node.js, and I managed to eliminate a redundant step in my workflow after setting up a WordPress website with Local by Flywheel.

If you’re interested on how to get started with this CLI, I wrote an introductory piece on it. The CLI is available on both GitHub and npm.

ⓦ WordPress Core Contribution

Contributing to any open source software takes time and dedication. I also try to invest a part of my free time to make OSS contributions. In the spirit of this resolution, I started contributing to the WordPress core in 2017.

Last year, I contributed to the new default theme — TwentyNineteen — of WordPress. It was announced to be a part of WordPress 5.0, and I got core contribution props in this release.

I also managed to contribute to the 5.1 release. I must admit that it feels great to contribute to a software which is powering more than one-third of the internet 🙌

✈️ Growth of WP Security Audit Log

It has been well over a year since I started my job as the principal developer of one of their security products, WP Security Audit Log, at WP White Security — joined in November 2017.

WSAL has seen tremendous growth during last year. The active users of the plugin increased from 60,000 to 80,000+ exhibiting 25% increase in the userbase. The plugin also got listed in the solution center of WPEngine — security section.

I also worked on some significant features related to the event logging for the WP Security Audit Log plugin. Here are a few notable feature updates of the plugin from last year:

• File Integrity Scans for a WordPress site
• Gutenberg Support
• Support for SSL / Client certificates for secure external database connections
• Support for Slack
• Support for MainWP Dashboard changes

👉 You can check the list of releases over here.

🥁 #TheOpenDevCon

The team at TheDevCouple.com organize local community meetups throughout the year. Last year was not any different. However, the most highlighted event of 2018 was #TheOpenDevCon.

We arranged this event for the students of CS, CE, and EE at the CSE department of the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore. I gave my first hands-on workshop on how to host a Gatsby site on a Linode server at this event.

I am looking forward to give more practical workshops like this one in the future meetups 🤞

👨‍💻 TheDevCouple.com

I had an exciting run at TheDevCouple.com last year. I reviewed and wrote articles on a few reputable WordPress companies and plugins including Kinsta, WPEngine, Cloudways, WP Security Audit Log, and WP Rocket.

I learned a lot about how to write reviews during my run. Check out the complete list of articles that I wrote on TheDevCouple.com

🔰 Resolutions

Here are a few resolutions that I have in mind for 2019.

• 👫 Get to know more people in the WordPress and open source community.
• 🤝 Collaborate more with developers on open source projects.
• 🎓 Complete the road to become a full stack developer.
• 🎨 Develop a theme in Gatsby JS for my website.
• 📖 Blog more about my experiences and learning over time.
• 🚦 Try to start managing my expectations which will help me grow both personally and professionally.
• 💪 Focus more on getting fit and eat less junk and more healthy food.

🎁 Wrapping Up

That’s pretty much about it. Another year has passed and I am very grateful for everything it brought me. I am also looking forward to the surprises that 2019 will throw along my way. Ciao 👋

Featured Image Credits: Photo by Émile Perron on Unsplash