Get Practical With WordPress Pro Justin Tadlock

We’ve been talking with WordPress professionals, exploring some of the practical tools they use every day. Today we’re talking with Justin Tadlock. Justin is the co-author of Professional WordPress Plugin Development and the owner of Theme Hybrid, a WordPress theme and plugin community. He’s also on the theme review team for WordPress and offers a review service with Theme Review.

“I love the community more than anything. I was welcomed in with open arms from day one and have enjoyed getting to know lots of great people since then.” —Justin Tadlock

We’re going to talk about the versatility of WordPress and some of Justin’s favorite tools:

Why do you love WordPress?

I got into this whole WordPress thing because I wanted to write. During most of my years of working with WordPress I loved it because it was the best tool for the job. It’s certainly not the best tool for basic blogging anymore. However, I love it for different things now. I love it because it has provided a means of getting away from the standard 9-to-5 job. I love it because I can build cool stuff with it. I could do those things with any platform though. I suppose I love the community more than anything. I was welcomed in with open arms from day one and have enjoyed getting to know lots of great people since then.

What are your favorite freelance tools?

I rarely do freelance work, so I don’t have any freelance-specific tools other than PayPal. I also use the Easy Digital Downloads plugin to connect my website to PayPal.

What are your favorite coding/design tools?

Notepad++ has been my go-to editor for years. These days, I’m really digging Atom as a text editor, but I primarily use it for writing in Markdown. Photoshop is always useful. These are my primary tools. Mostly, I try to keep it simple while exploring different programs. Right now, I’m using the Koala app and TortoiseGit. I feel like I’ll be using them for a long while, but I’m open to trying other programs to replace them.

Check out more interviews with successful WordPress pros in our series First, Best & Wish You Knew.