[ad_1] Este ensayo también está disponible en español. How I Met WordPress It seems like only yesterday that I thought to myself… There have to be a better way to do this? At that time I was working as a designer for a company dedicated to sports and we were working internally on a kind of CMS to digitize our Football News magazine, but the result was horrendous, the interface did not exist, it constantly crashed and it was full of bugs. That’s how in the year 2008-2009 in an Internet search I discovered WP, its version at that time 2.5, I couldn’t get us to use WP as a CMS and the internal solution won. But there was one seed planted. At that time I used WordPress in a very simple way, my background was a graphic designer, I didn’t know anything about PHP, much less about programming, but studying the WP code I was able to make my first themes, which by the way were terrible. I learned HTML and CSS, at the same time I started taking Programming courses, especially in PHP, and that’s how I started this adventure. The first years were literally learning on my own, in my bubble, then I started to add the word web developer in my resume, I found a job in a company as a designer and web master, I designed gif banners, magazine ads, brochures and the website , this company had its page in ASP and since it was very complicated to update it, at least for me, I gave myself the task of migrating it to WordPress, it was 2014 and WP was in version 3.9, this was my first job in which I did everything from the design to the development and programming of the theme, in it I put into practice everything I had learned until then. Community In 2016, I met Roberto Remedios, my tattoo artist who was also his tattoo artist, told him that if didn’t know me?, Costa Rica is a small country where one way or another we all have friends in common, he told him that my passion was WordPress, when we met we didn’t stop talking about how cool it was, but what caught my attention the most was the word Community. Community what was that?, I had spent so many years working on my own that I didn’t know that it even existed, my concept of Open Source was simply something free. Roberto convinced me that same year to go to WordCamp Miami, it was my first camp, meeting the community behind WP was something that impressed me a lot, the talks, the desire to teach and learn from all the participants, and above all to collaborate with the community, wow everything changed for me. When we got back, Roberto and I started talking about the possibility of holding a WordCamp in San José, Costa Rica. Part of that process is giving talks before the camp as a way to promote it, and as a member of the newly founded WordPress Costa Rica group, it was time for me to give a talk. It was the first time I spoke in front of the public since my student days, I remember how nervous I was, my talk revolved around page builders, there was no Gutenberg back then, I managed to get the Meetup sponsored, there were snacks, swags, A lot of people came, it was incredible. Colleagues who participated that day in that Meetup, are still an active part of the community. I gave that same talk at WordCamp and it was even more stressful, because my computer did not turn on, at that moment they lent me a computer, but oh surprise I could not run my test site, after 20min I was able to solve the problem, the JavaScript was disabled. I was already sweating profusely, red with shame, in the end I was able to give the talk and everything ended well. WordCamp San Jose, it was incredible, it was hard work, very rewarding, it was a success, never before had I felt so good professionally, years had passed, without sharing something that I like so much with anyone, suddenly we had a community, we meet regularly, and share about what we are most passionate about. Recently my talks revolve around making my local community aware of new WordPress trends, I collaborate as an administrator of the WordPress Costa Rica group. Outside Costa Rica The second year that I attended WordCamp Miami, I participated as a volunteer, and I had the opportunity to interact with many of the humans that I follow on social media, and then I was encouraged to send talks and participate in the WordCamps that take place in my region. Eager to share what I have learned, to date I have participated as a volunteer, speaker, and organizer in my city Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Mexico and in the first Central American WordCamp which was held online. Then came the talks in another language, I have had the opportunity to give talks in Rome, Italy, I participated as a volunteer in the WordCamp US, where I had the opportunity to meet colleagues and the CEO of a company that I admire a lot, this was in Nashville , U.S. seeing colleagues with whom I have had the privilege of working today, my circle of friends expanded. Also had participate in online conferences, such as GatsbyConf, JavaScript For WordPress and at WordCamp EU 2021. I like to share and talk about JAMStack, especially with GatsbyJS and WordPress as a headless CMS. Professional Path I have a lot to thank WordPress for, the first thing it brought was the curiosity to learn programming, then remote work. I started working for an agency located in Austin, Texas, with several collaborators in Costa Rica, it was the year 2017, they hired me for my knowledge in WordPress, it was not only the first time that
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