One of the most exciting sessions we have on our schedule — and that’s really saying something! — is the Intro to JavaScript Workshop with Zac Gordon.
Zac is a professional educator and previously taught WordPress for Treehouse. He has years of experience teaching WordPress and JavaScript at high schools, colleges, bootcamps and online learning sites.
We wanted to ask Zac a few questions so you could know who you can spend three amazing hours with on Saturday afternoon! We think this is a truly incredible opportunity worth way more than the cost of admission.
WCSEA: So what makes you think you’re qualified to teach this workshop anyway? Have you even done this before? ;P
ZAC: Well, I like to think I’m qualified 🙂
I have a background in education and have been teaching JavaScript and the WP API full time for the last year and a half.
This workshop is my effort to try to take everything I teach in my Master Course and condense the importance stuff into a 3 hour workshop.
WCSEA: More seriously, we’re really excited to have you doing this workshop for our attendees! Who are the folks who can benefit most from your training?
ZAC: Two types of people benefit:
- Folks new to JavaScript
- Folks who use a little JavaScript or jQuery and want to know vanilla JavaScript in more depth.
WCSEA: As many will know, WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg told us to “learn JavaScript deeply” in 2015, but why? What’s so great about JavaScript? What are the things it lets us do that we couldn’t otherwise?
ZAC: First of all, JavaScript is the primary language for building interactive websites so there is a ton we simply can’t do without it.
Now with the Era of JavaScript Frameworks™ we can more easily build full apps, plugins or decoupled sites entirely with JavaScript.
WCSEA: That all sounds really cool! What are a few sites where we can see vanilla JavaScript & WordPress together in action?
ZAC: We really don’t have to look further than WordPress Core-related projects like Gutenberg, the Customizer and a lot of other areas where more and more interfaces use JavaScript. I have also seen many agencies using React and Vue in their client projects within WordPress themes or in decoupled applications. Exciting times we’re in here.
WCSEA: Presumably people should know what WordPress is before attending this workshop. What skills do people need to get the most from the session? Do they need to have anything prepared ahead of time?
ZAC: Folks should have a copy of DesktopServer or Local setup to run WordPress on their computer and have a Code Editor like Atom.
If you’re using a different local environment like XAMPP or MAMP, make sure you’ve got a local SSL certificate ready and can use HTTPS locally.
That’s about it!
WCSEA: When someone walks out of the room at 3:30pm on November 4, what will they know that they didn’t before?
ZAC: JavaScript language basics, how to work with the DOM and JavaScript events, how to add JavaScript to a WordPress theme (or plugin) and how to start pulling in content with JavaScript via the WP REST API.
We will pack in a lot!
WOW! That sure is a lot of amazing stuff you can just learn at WordCamp Seattle 2017.
We hope to see you there! To make sure you can get a spot in Zac’s workshop…
photo credit: Lorenzo Cafaro