Official Blog

Best Practices for Managing Open-Source Software

Contribution to the open web is one of 10up’s guiding values. The sharing of expertise, like our engineering best practices, and the creation of our open source tools like Distributor, ClassifAI, and ElasticPress, along with our hundreds of commits to open projects like WordPress, reflect 10up’s position as a leading contributor to open source platforms.

Our latest contribution is the release of our official Open Source Best Practices as a public project on GitHub.

10up Open Source Best Practices GitHub Repo Home Page

Following 10up’s mission to make a better web with finely crafted websites and tools for content creators, our Open Source Practice brings forth deep experience in the long-term stewardship of open-source projects. Beyond pushing code to a public repository, effective open-source management requires thoughtful consideration of licensing, defining maintenance procedures, and proactive communication with participants. By releasing our best practices, we hope to provide a guide for the establishment and ownership of open-source projects.

10up Is WordCamp US Bound

WordCamp US

Each year, we participate in dozens of industry events around the world. One highlight is WordCamp US, the largest official WordPress conference in the United States. This year, we’re heading to St. Louis, Missouri for three days.

Speaking

We’re proud to have two speakers leading off this year’s event. In the presentation Open Source, Open Process, Open Web, Helen Hou-Sandi, Director of Open Source Initiatives, will examine the histories of open source and the open web, and discuss how they apply to WordPress.

Jeffrey Paul, Open Source Practice Manager, will answer the question, “I’m not a developer, how can I contribute to WordPress?” in the presentation Contributing to Core, No Coding Necessary.

Integrating More Than 20 Million Public Data Records With WordPress

Brian Bourn Speaking at BigWP SF

As a WordPress.com VIP gold agency partner, 10up was recently invited to speak at BigWP SF, the enterprise WordPress meetup series that brings together developers, business leaders, and product managers who work with high-scale WordPress applications every day.

My presentation, Managing Millions of Public Data Records With WordPress, highlighted the challenges we encountered when integrating millions of public data records with the WordPress-powered website for ElectricityPlans, a broker in the deregulated Texas electricity market, and how we used solutions like ElasticPress to overcome those challenges.

Leveraging New Relic to Keep Content Flowing

New Relic Guest Post By Vasken Hauri

When discussing website performance, most people zero in on page load speed and the front-end user experience. This approach, however, ignores a critical subset of people interacting with the website—content creators working in the content management system (CMS). In a guest post published on the official New Relic blog, I share how 10up leveraged New Relic tools to better support content creators and empower them to work more efficiently through back-end performance improvements.

10up uses New Relic’s performance monitoring to acquire real-time and trending data that can be used to troubleshoot performance challenges and diagnose problems quickly, which in turn, saves time and reduces cost.

Introducing 10up’s Open Source Practice

10up Summit in Jackson Hole, Wyoming

10up aims to make a better web through finely crafted websites, innovative tools for content creators, and open-source contributions that drive growth. As a leading contributor to WordPress and the greater open-source community, the creation and sharing of open platforms and tools is a large part of our identity.

The establishment of an official Open Source Practice within 10up demonstrates our commitment to advance open-source technology, lead by example, and grow the community of which we are proud to be a part and upon whose shoulders we stand.

We have long utilized employee downtime between client projects for open-source contribution. Earlier this year, I joined the team as Open Source Practice Manager. I work most closely with Helen Hou-Sandí, our Director of Open Source Initiatives, and Adam Silverstein, a Lead Open Source Initiatives Engineer, both of whom primarily focus on open source and contribution. That core team is augmented by additional 10uppers, some of whom have dedicated recurring time carved out for open source initiatives, and some of whom join our efforts for discrete projects. Collectively, 10up invests more than 350 hours every month into our open source initiatives.

10up Releases Insert Special Characters For The New WordPress Editor

Insert Special Characters Plugin Banner
Last week, we released Insert Special Characters, a plugin that brings a special characters menu to the new WordPress block editor.

The new WordPress editor (aka Gutenberg) introduced a modern, block-based paradigm for visually authoring content. For all of its advancements, a button to insert special characters was not carried over from the classic editing experience—a feature critical to writers and publishers frequently using mathematical notation or other symbols. Feedback concerning its absence and some client questions inspired our Open Source Practice to take action.

From its conception, 10up has worked with vital publishers and content creators to improve storytelling across the web. This week I’m in Columbus, Ohio to participate in the third annual WordCamp for Publishers—a conference bringing together content creators using WordPress to manage and grow publications of all sizes. Thursday, I’ll be delivering the lightning talk “#NoStalking,” about the challenges of delivering advertising that drives revenue but also respects user privacy.

Analysis of CSS in JavaScript Applications Featured on CSS-Tricks

Article Screenshot The Many Ways to Include CSS in JavaScript Applications

There are several ways to handle CSS architecture within JavaScript applications. While considered a controversial topic among front-end developers, it’s important to remember that each method, whether in a React, Vue, or Angular application, has its own merits and inefficiencies. In a recent article for CSS-Tricks (one of the leading digital publications covering web technologies), I explore CSS architecture and the many ways to include CSS in JavaScript Applications—from using an external stylesheet, to creating CSS Modules, or writing CSS-in-JS.