viewSource

[00:00:00] **Aurooba:** You are listening to viewSource, a conversation around tech, web development, and WordPress with hosts Aurooba Ahmed, that's me and Brian Coords.

[00:00:11] **Brian:** Okay. Aurooba, I've got an opening question for you for today's episode.

[00:00:16] **Aurooba:** Okay.

[00:00:16] **Brian:** You ready for this?

[00:00:17] **Aurooba:** Yes.

[00:00:19] **Brian:** All right. What do you think in your mind, like the first thing that comes to your mind as like the kind of most surprising or breakthrough tech thing to happen to maybe our industry in like, I don't know, the last year.

[00:00:33] **Aurooba:** Uh, AI. It's like everywhere, right? It's like all this auto automated, artificial intelligence generation, text images. I remember in June people were like, yeah, we're like six months away from anything kind of good, no.

[00:00:49] **Brian:** Mm-hmm.

[00:00:49] **Aurooba:** or sorry, 10 months or something, but like six months later it's amazing.

[00:00:54] **Brian:** I find that every time I say something where I'm like, oh, they won't be able to ever do this. [00:01:00] Now I start going like, well, that's what I thought about, you know?

[00:01:03] **Aurooba:** Yeah.

[00:01:03] **Brian:** That's what I thought about. You know, uh, writing mediocre essays on things and it's doing a really good job of that.

[00:01:10] **Aurooba:** Yes, yes. I remember when people would try to like plagiarize and I'm just like, now, you don't even have to try to plagiarize yourself. It will plagiarize for you and it will not even be plagiarism.

[00:01:22] **Brian:** Yeah. It. It'll plagiarize the, the way that you, I mean you, I mean, not me. I would've never done this in high school. I would never admit to have done any this, doing this in high school. But the way where you hand somebody something and you're like, copy my answers, but like, change it a little bit so it doesn't look like, you know, and then also like you get like two things wrong on purpose, just so you don't get a perfect score, cuz you wanna make sure it looks like you were kind of trying.

[00:01:47] That's, that's exactly what's happening. It's like,

[00:01:50] **Aurooba:** yes,

[00:01:50] **Brian:** here's a, here's an essay it's just somebody else's words rewritten. And half of it is in fact, factually incorrect.

[00:01:58] **Aurooba:** Yes. Or even more than [00:02:00] half. Oh my goodness. Yeah. ,

[00:02:02] **Brian:** I knew that was gonna be your answer. I just even like, actually, I think the, the harder question would've been like, what's the second thing after? Because I think AI just, it's just so obvious. It's like there's no, there's no competition.

[00:02:15] **Aurooba:** Yeah, I'd have to think about it. But you know what, I bet you anyone listening to it to this, that would've been their first answer. Like, all of us, AI. Cuz it's like everywhere right now, you know? It's the only thing we're talking about really.

[00:02:29] **Brian:** Yeah.

[00:02:30] **Aurooba:** But um, that's not the only thing we wanna talk about on this podcast, right? We wanna talk about quite a few different things.

[00:02:36] **Brian:** Like how good you are at making segues.

[00:02:39] **Aurooba:** That was a good segue. I didn't even plan that.

[00:02:42] **Brian:** Yeah, that felt like it felt too good, you, you should throw in some errors and like, don't be that good cuz then, uh, then I'm gonna think you're an AI.

[00:02:52] **Aurooba:** Yes, exactly. I don't wanna be chatGPT please. Um, yeah, but I guess we will talk about [00:03:00] stuff like chatGPT and how it relates to development, especially right?

[00:03:05] **Brian:** Yeah, definitely. And I would say WordPress development is sort of where we both live, so I think that's kind of always gonna be a recurring theme, don't you think?

[00:03:15] **Aurooba:** Oh yeah, totally. Um, I live in WordPress. I code every day in WordPress. But obviously our interests are not just in WordPress, but like things that are adjacent to WordPress as well, right? So things like maybe like Laravel or

[00:03:31] **Brian:** mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm.

[00:03:32] **Aurooba:** Um, just other like code libraries.

[00:03:34] **Brian:** Shopify

[00:03:34] **Aurooba:** Yes.

[00:03:35] **Brian:** WooCommerce. Um,

[00:03:37] **Aurooba:** that's WordPress.

[00:03:39] **Brian:** Yeah. Yeah. But like Shopify, other e-commerce platforms, uh, SAAS versus WordPress, open source, uh,

[00:03:50] **Aurooba:** versus proprietary.

[00:03:51] **Brian:** Things like Laravel. Yeah.

[00:03:52] **Aurooba:** Yeah.

[00:03:52] **Brian:** All of that stuff. Accessibility, um.

[00:03:56] **Aurooba:** Mm-hmm. ,

[00:03:57] **Brian:** I know

[00:03:57] **Aurooba:** basically it's about the web, [00:04:00] right?

[00:04:00] **Brian:** Yeah. And making things for other people and getting better. Yeah. Making them good.

[00:04:07] **Aurooba:** Mm-hmm. how it is when you're making things for clients and just like figuring out comp complicated issues that you didn't see coming and how we handle that as developers.

[00:04:20] Right. I think that's also like a theme for us.

[00:04:23] **Brian:** I think. Um, I think we both have the developer urge to optimize and automate everything we're doing. Like I want a workflow, I want a Google Doc, I want it written down. I want Trello to automatically, you know, z Zapier to my Slack, all of that stuff. So I think there's a whole world of sort of client management, project management, business management, combined with WordPress, entrepreneurship, development.

[00:04:50] I think I think both you and I are like jack of all trades, where we're probably like cocktail party level [00:05:00] knowledge to talk about something like Tailwind, but I'm not gonna go teach a tailwind course, but like I can talk about it enough so that you think I know a lot about it. And I think that that's what a lot of us have to do.

[00:05:09] That's like, that's how you, that's how you thrive in web development nowadays.

[00:05:14] You just,

[00:05:14] **Aurooba:** yeah, especially when you're working on client projects, right, that are like gonna change project to project those requirements and you don't know what's gonna happen or what's gonna come.

[00:05:22] **Brian:** Yeah. And if you want to know, am I gonna use a plugin? Am I gonna code it from scratch? Am I gonna use a library? Uh,

[00:05:29] **Aurooba:** yeah.

[00:05:29] **Brian:** Who am I gonna talk to? Who am I gonna bring on this project? Um, how much time do I really think it's gonna take? How much time am I gonna pretend like it's gonna take? How much time will I lie to myself and say it'll take. All those questions.

[00:05:41] **Aurooba:** Yeah. But also the fact that even though we need to have so much shallow knowledge about so many different topics, there's also aspects that we need deep knowledge on and need to work on deepening even, even more so that we can be really effective at our jobs.

[00:05:56] **Brian:** And that's a good transition to sort of our [00:06:00] background and our experience level.

[00:06:01] I think we should each give a little bit of a background in case people don't know who we are, um, which is crazy cuz we're clearly famous. But basically, you know, what's our own background, what's our development? Do you have, you gotta have like a two sentence, I'll give you more, I'll give you five sentences. Um, bio and background in web development.

[00:06:22] **Aurooba:** All right. I learned, I learned HTML so that I could make Inuyasha fan sites when I was 12 years old. And then I got into WordPress and learned about like more dynamic web web development when my dad started a nonprofit and he needed a website he could edit himself. And ever since then I have freelanced and worked with a billion different clients, and I love what I do.

[00:06:47] Go, you.

[00:06:49] **Brian:** So my background was not in web development other than being, you know, the high school nerd who wrote HTML on my Geocities websites with my friends, [00:07:00] but, my background is actually in teaching and public education, and then it sort of somehow ended up into a place where I was building websites and that just consumed my life, and WordPress was a big part of that.

[00:07:11] So my experience now mostly is around, uh, building websites, but also educating other developers, um, at the agency I work at. And also just, um, a lot of writing in the WordPress space, um, and posting opinions on things, you know, as one tends to do in the age of the internet.

[00:07:34] **Aurooba:** Yeah. I think we both really care about teaching, like that's a recurring theme for both of us.

[00:07:39] **Brian:** Mm-hmm.

[00:07:39] **Aurooba:** and like, I'm trying to also get. More, teach a lot more and get like, you know, I care about educating other developers so that they are able to do their job even better. So yeah, I think that is something that brings us together and uh, is also a motivation for this podcast. Like, I think that there's just not enough [00:08:00] transparency around like how do you handle a certain type of issue or how a certain type of problem in the WordPress space or even outside of it. And this is a space for us to sort of talk about real world client situations, client project situations without necessarily talking about the clients directly. Cuz I feel like that's just like a missing hole in like the conversations in our industry.

[00:08:23] **Brian:** I feel like when we first talked about doing this podcast, you and I both made a list of things about ourselves and it was like very opposites. It was like, I live in Canada and I'm like, I live in Southern California, and like we had this whole list of like very opposite things that like really didn't line up.

[00:08:40] But then now after working through this and some projects and stuff together, I think we've realized that we have things where we're exactly the opposite and then things where we're exactly the same.

[00:08:50] **Aurooba:** Yeah.

[00:08:50] **Brian:** And so I think it'll be fun to bring that to the conversation where it's like we have a lot of different experience, a lot of different ways we like to do things.

[00:08:58] Um, [00:09:00] but there's this kind of universal aspect to being a web developer that once you start talking to another web developer, you realize like, Oh, we've all had the same things. Yes, we all have the same feelings about hosting companies. We all have the same experience with the same bugs and all that sort of stuff.

[00:09:15] So I think it's gonna be fun to sort of like dig into that, those weird common ground areas and those weird like disagreement areas.

[00:09:23] **Aurooba:** A hundred percent. I'm looking forward to all of those conversations.

[00:09:28] **Brian:** should we have the conversation? I mean, you brought this up so I'm just, I'm just throw it out there, which is.

[00:09:35] Why we picked each other as co-host for a podcast. Do you?

[00:09:41] **Aurooba:** Uh, I picked, I knew that I wanted to have a podcast with you because we did jam well, like when we started talking, it was like, there's a lot of things where I felt like I could learn from you, but also a lot of things where like conceptually and on principle, we both agreed, like we thought about a lot of things the same way.

[00:09:59] [00:10:00] And because you have experience in aspects and in types of projects that I don't, I was like, okay, this is the person that I can talk to and I can share my experience and also learn a lot from his experience. So that was part of my motivation.

[00:10:13] **Brian:** Yeah, mine was very similar. I was, you know, I think. I spend a lot of my time more in the writing place, and I think you spend a lot of your time just building and shipping things.

[00:10:26] So there's like, you have a lot of just things that exist out there that people find useful. So I kind of thought, wow, that's like, that's a place where I want to like learn and move and kind of understand that I, I also am pretty sure that we decided to have a podcast before I think we even really got to know each other and, uh, so,

[00:10:47] **Aurooba:** yes,

[00:10:48] **Brian:** and I think we, luckily it's all worked out, but, uh, that was, uh, I, I think it was a, a mystical, uh, you know, like force, like planets aligning sort of a situation [00:11:00] on some level.

[00:11:00] **Aurooba:** Yeah, you're right. I, when that first, the idea first cameup, I was just like, yeah, this is something I want to do. Okay, let's, let's do it. And then in the process of making this happen is how we actually got to know each other, right?

[00:11:16] **Brian:** Yeah, I think so. I don't know if you're like me. I also like always wanted to start a podcast because I think everybody wants to start a podcast just like everybody wants to write a novel or something. I think.

[00:11:28] I think everybody wants to write a novel. I think everybody wants to write a podcast or do a podcast.

[00:11:32] **Aurooba:** Yes. I wanna do both those things.

[00:11:34] So

[00:11:35] **Brian:** you do, right?

[00:11:35] **Aurooba:** Yes.

[00:11:35] **Brian:** Admit it.

[00:11:36] **Aurooba:** Yes.

[00:11:36] **Brian:** You wanna write a novel?

[00:11:36] **Aurooba:** Yes, of course.

[00:11:37] **Brian:** So I think there's, there's definitely a sense where you're like, I don't really just want to talk to myself. There's a lot of really good interview podcasts in WordPress that exists, and I'm glad those are there and I listen to 'em. Um, but I, you know, every week it's like the same person is on four different podcasts for the same thing. So I, I really like the idea of a conversation [00:12:00] between two people that's gonna go, you know, just in different places every time.

[00:12:06] **Aurooba:** I also like the idea of the people listening to go along on the ride and learn about us. And as we go through our journey in figuring things stuff out too, I think that adds a level of familiarity and context that that just becomes more valuable as you listen to more and more of the episodes. You know, it's like when you have your favorite blogger and you've been reading their writing forever and you know so much about them just from all of this, and it just makes every new post feel even more valuable and better because of it.

[00:12:38] **Brian:** Yeah. And hopefully, you know, there won't be any unhealthy, you know, parasocial relationships. Like, um, you know, I know that you want to take this into like a weird alt-right space and, and I've kind of been fighting against that. But, um, no, I feel, I feel the same way. Just, um, you know, I do feel like you made it sound like I'm maybe some sort of an expert and when people realize that's just [00:13:00] not true and I'm just. Don't really know what I'm talking about. Um, they're gonna be disappointed. But, um, ultimately I think that's your fault for saying that about me. Um,

[00:13:09] **Aurooba:** I can take full responsibility because you are an expert, so it's okay.

[00:13:14] **Brian:** I'm, I'm an expert at looking like an expert, um, which I think leads us into release format.

[00:13:21] What do you wanna give a preview of what the average format length will feel like and how often we're gonna release.

[00:13:30] **Aurooba:** I think weekly is a good, uh, good cadence for us, you know, to have this conversation. And I think the, when we first started talking about it, we knew that we didn't wanna have like a super long podcast. It's definitely never gonna be an hour long conversation. Right?

[00:13:47] **Brian:** Yeah. I think it's at a certain point if I don't even like listening to my own thoughts for more than like an hour in a week. So I, I think, you know, I don't want people to get into a weird, unhealthy space where they feel like they have to listen to, you know, us [00:14:00] for that long

[00:14:01] **Aurooba:** Yeah. I mean, we ramble as it is enough in other social spaces.

[00:14:06] **Brian:** Yeah. And I don't, I haven't seen us do a lot of editing, so, you know,

[00:14:10] **Aurooba:** Yeah.

[00:14:10] **Brian:** A lot of that gets left in for better or worse.

[00:14:14] **Aurooba:** Yes. Yes. We, I can promise you that this is gonna be a conversation that is very natural and very candid when almost every episode, cuz nobody wants to go back and edit. Come on now.

[00:14:26] **Brian:** Yeah, the, this is, this is gonna be a weekly, potentially 30 minute conversation. Very unedited. Uh, there's probably gonna be times where we maybe don't know what we're talking about, but we're learning from each other. And I think, uh, you know, I think people can relate to that.

[00:14:43] **Aurooba:** a hundred percent. And I think it makes it a more interesting conversation. So, you know, we set up a website.

[00:14:49] **Brian:** Mm-hmm.

[00:14:50] **Aurooba:** it's viewsource.fm and we have a newsletter so you can subscribe if you'd rather get the links to the episodes in your inbox. And this is [00:15:00] also a video podcast, right, Brian?

[00:15:02] **Brian:** Yeah. I'm gonna apologize in advance that you're just gonna be looking at this.

[00:15:08] Um, I'm hoping there'll be some screen sharing.

[00:15:13] **Aurooba:** yes.

[00:15:13] **Brian:** I'm hoping there's gonna be an AI that just kind of like, you know, filters this, but, we'll for now it's, it's gonna just be this space. So

[00:15:22] **Aurooba:** yeah, so we have a YouTube channel, so you know, you can subscribe there as well. And we'll be posting the video podcasts there at the same time as posting it in our regular podcast area so that you can get it in whatever your favorite app is.

[00:15:37] **Brian:** Now tell me my last question, closing question, do you do you prefer podcast in audio or are you a YouTube video podcast person?

[00:15:47] **Aurooba:** When I'm doing chores, then audio. But if I'm at my computer, then video. So I think that's why it makes so much sense to me that we're doing both formats.

[00:15:59] **Brian:** good. [00:16:00] I'm gonna let you lead that cuz I don't know that I've ever seen a pod watched a video podcast, so

[00:16:05] **Aurooba:** never? Okay.

[00:16:07] **Brian:** No, I don't think so. I was,

[00:16:08] **Aurooba:** I watched quite a few

[00:16:11] **Brian:** I like a little, like a video essay, you know, like a, like a, like a really highly edited video essay.

[00:16:17] **Aurooba:** Yeah.

[00:16:17] **Brian:** But

[00:16:17] **Aurooba:** yeah,

[00:16:19] **Brian:** I've never, so, so if I'm bad at it now, you know why

[00:16:23] **Aurooba:** Well, we hope that you'll follow along and listen with us. And, uh, the first episode should be dropping next week.

[00:16:30] **Brian:** Yeah. We'll see you then. Visit viewsource.fm for the latest updates and links to the show notes. Review and subscribe to viewSource in iTunes, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.