Welcome to Beyond WP

Yes!! You signed up for the Beyond WP email newsletter. Thank you! I’m excited that you’re on the list!

This email gives an introduction to me and the project and details of what you can expect from the newsletter.

Me and WordPress

I’m Ross, I’ve been a software developer since 1998, and I’ve been working with WordPress since 2010.

I love WordPress and have built a business working primarily with it. But its recent change of direction away from being a general purpose CMS and towards being a website builder left me searching. I needed more flexible tools that would allow me to solve complex problems for my clients.

I found those tools in the Laravel framework’s ecosystem and I’ve been thriving as a developer and loving the fast-paced, high-tech creativity of the Laravel world. And working with Laravel has made me a better WordPress developer too!

Helping you go Beyond WP

Knowing how positive it has been for me to learn Laravel and be a part of that community, I decided to encourage others to look beyond the WordPress world and check out what’s going on elsewhere too. That’s what Beyond WP is for!

In these emails I’ll be your guide to both learning Laravel (should you want to) and to the tools and techniques of Laravel and the wider PHP world that might help you level up as a WordPress developer.

I’ll be bringing you:

• Tools for your development workflow
• People who I follow and admire and who are building cool stuff
• Podcasts and YouTube channels for learning
• Training courses and tutorials for all areas of being a PHP web developer
• Explorations of other CMS’s and frameworks for development
• My own tutorials and articles introducing ideas and tools
• Some thoughts and reflections on software and web development

If there’s demand I may try and set some simple challenges or projects for you to have a go at. And I may try doing some mentoring if that’s helpful too.

And, to be totally transparent, I’ll also be re-launching my “WordPress to Laravel” video course at some point, so I’ll be keeping you informed about that, and other projects of my own that may be of interest.

About YOU!

Beyond WP won’t be for every WordPress person. It’s intended for back-end WordPress developers who write a lot of PHP. But I will aim to present new concepts in WordPress friendly ways, and not make too many assumptions about what you know.

If you find you are out of your depth, do let me know. I’m keen to understand my audience.

Drop me a line and let me know where you’re at and why Beyond WP intrigued you. Maybe I can make this relevant for you too.

What’s the format?

This email newsletter is the main source of content - at least, to start with. I’m not going to promise a schedule for emails, but once they start I’m going to aim for fortnightly.

There will be some video content too, and you can follow along for smaller updates at @beyond_wp on Twitter. I may decide to add written articles at some point. We’ll see.

Let’s GO!

I’ve found looking beyond WordPress into other, thriving tech communities to be exciting, inspiring, and fun.

I hope you’ll find the same. I’m excited that you’ve taken your first step Beyond WP!

Ross Wintle