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Ahmad Awais
Today we are conducting the interview of Ahmad Awais from Lahore, Pakistan. He is an Award-winning open-source engineer and developer advocate. He has shared the story about how he felt in love with wordpress even after selecting the career path of electrical engineering.
Along with this, he has shared some best tools and software he uses for his creations, and the love for teaching, developing, talking etc.
About Me
Hello, there.
I am Ahmad Awais. I am an Award-winning open-source engineer and developer advocate. Author of various open-source dev-tools and software libraries that are used by millions of developers all around the world.
Leading developers and publishing technical content for over a decade. Cracking silly jokes in the JavaScript (Node.js/React.js) and the web dev (Cloud/DevOps) dev communities.
I like computers, problems and using the former to solve the latter. I believe in elegance over adequacy, thoughtfulness over impulse, and in the wonder of the world as we can see it. I have had been designing web pages since the early days of tables & spacers. And no – I’ve never used the scrolling marquee with Comic Sans fonts.
I have built 150+ professional open-source projects that are used by 1,781,061+ developers (including Google/Facebook Engineers) and downloaded 3,500,000+ times. Example – Award-winning open-source software.
Q. How did you come into your current field? Share a bit of the background?
A. I got my first computer in late 90’s. It ran on Windows 95 and Google was not around at that time. I have a few vague memories of playing Prince Of Persia Game considering I was seven years old and all.
What happened was that we bought a movie, and no one knew how to play it with a computer. We had to wait until my cousin (the engineer) visited us and played it on a media player. I asked her “How did you know to do that”? And she said that it was pretty easy.
As a matter of fact, she had a book about Java programming with her, and she told me a bit about it. That was the day I got hooked up; I knew that software was my thing.
Long story short, for more than four years — as a freelancer — I tested my skill set both as a designer (Adobe Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere, Illustrator) and as a web developer (LAMP/LEMP/Node — Full Stack WP Frontend Fanatic). After all that, I decided that WordPress was my thing.
One of the people I am most inspired by is Matt Mullenweg (co-founder of WordPress)
Shifting from Electrical Engineering to Software Engineering without a mentor was a hard thing to do, though, WordPress made it a lot easier for me
I am committed to WordPress. It has provided me with a way actually to change my career path forever
Q. What’s the most interesting project you have done to date in WordPress?
A. Being a theme developer, I find it kind of interesting to read how other theme devs code a bare bones theme. While I maintain one called Neat, I found Lean theme to be an interesting fork of Some-Like-it-neat. Contributed a capital_P_dangit()correction if you know what I mean ⓦ.
Q. Have you ever been to any WordPress meetups or WordCamps? If yes did you learn anything useful?
A. I have never been to any WordCamps in person. So can’t help there.
Q. What does your workstation look like?
A. yes, of course check out the picture
Q. What kind of tools/software do you currently use for your creations?
A. Nowadays, it’s almost customary and expected of you to have this page. I use a lot of software and hardware products. The list of items are listed
Q. What interesting feature do you think you would like to see in WordPress and is currently missing?
A. All good now…But, still trying to do some enhancement in WordPress as I told you that I am committed to WordPress.
Q. Out of the current plugins and themes which one do you like the most and why? *
A. I am currently using Pro Sublime Text and Operator Mono. My primary terminal app is iTerm2, I also use Zsh shell.
Before I used Inconsolata and Source Code, Visual Studio Code, IBM Plex & Fira Code
Q. Which WordPress hosting do you use and would you recommend for your clients and others?
A. I admire the screenshot, GIF, and small video hosting by My CloudApp — I use it daily. If you’re just getting started, use Dynadot to buy domains (you get $5 with my link)‚ they always have the best pricing.
Q. Do you like/love what you currently do in WordPress?
A. Yes, I love to write, talk, build and share everything about WordPress.
Q. What would you like to do in the future in the current field or somewhere else?
A. Yes, I like to do future in the current field. I am committed to the WordPress only.
Q. Can you give us some reference for whom we should conduct an interview next and why?
A. Topher has done a brilliant job of managing HeroPress. You can take a reference from here.
Sonl Sinha is a passionate writer as well as WordPress and WooCommerce rockstar who loves to share insights on various topics through his engaging blog posts. He runs a successful website design and digital marketing company. With 15+ years of experience in WordPress theme development, he strives to inform and inspire readers with his thought-provoking content. He helps thousands of small and medium businesses and startups create a unique online presence. Follow Sonl Sinha for your regular dose of knowledge and inspiration.
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