Abhishek Rijal is a professional WordPress developer and a WordPress Educator from Nepal. He was a Web Developer at WEN Solutions. He is an active participant and contributor to the regular WordPress meet-ups and community events around Kathmandu. At WordCamp Pokhara 2018 he talked about –‘Demystifying Gutenberg: The new WordPress Editor’. We got to talk with him right the same day.
How and when did you start your journey with WordPress?
I started my journey 3 years ago (2015). I was leading a technical part in a travel company. The company needed WordPress sites to finish the tasks, so, yeah, that is how I got into WordPress.
What excites you the most about WordCamps?
The most important and interesting about WordCamps is to meet new people with different personalities and mind. There will be lots of networking and sharing in WordCamps. And also the sessions; we get to learn many new things that we are unaware of!
What do you hope attendees will take away from your talk today?
I am talking about ‘Demystifying Gutenberg: The new WordPress Editor.’ Gutenberg editor is coming in the future version of WordPress. One of the biggest hope for me is attendees to learn –How to get ready for the new update using the new Gutenberg editor. I also think Gutenberg editor is beneficial for beginners. I also hope my sessions would help developers as well as the beginners.
Are there any challenges you faced that you’d like to share with us?
It is always a challenge when starting a new thing. Hard work and dedication matters! And yes, I had some challenges regarding development and technical things. But there are a lot of resources available online which will help you out to figure out your problems!
What are your thoughts on the WordPress community of Nepal?
WordPress community of Nepal is really great, huge, and helpful. I think we have one of the best WordPress community in the world. Many people participate in the organized WordCamps and Meetups and share their knowledge.
How have you been contributing or giving back to the community?
I have been attending WordCamps and Meetups as a speaker. I am also going to speak in the upcoming WordCamp Biratnagar. Furthermore, I also help my team in translation and theme review.
What do you think about female participation in WordPress?
I think the female participation in WordPress is growing gradually. Back in Kathmandu, there were many female developers, designers attending many WordCamps and Meetups.
How do you stay updated on WordPress?
I personally have subscribed to many WordPress related websites like WP Tavern.
Gutenberg editor is a hot topic nowadays in WordPress, how do you think it is going to affect the WordPress ecosystem?
In my perspective, Gutenberg editor is the new thing that is happening in the WordPress community, and, yes it is a hot topic. It is something that developers are quite interested in. The new Gutenberg editor will affect a lot in the layouts, the way you are creating themes plugins and integration. So, as a whole, it changes the interface of the WordPress that people have been using for a very long time. It will change in the system, layout, and everything but in a good way. Developers, content writers, and users can extend their capabilities to a higher level.
What can we find you doing when you’re not WordPressing?
In my free time, I usually visit different places. So, yeah, I like to travel (a lot).
And lastly, WordPress 5.0 is releasing soon with Gutenberg Editor as the default editor. How excited are you about it?
I am really excited about it! Initially, there were a lot of issues in the project and the developers were also quite concerned about it. But now, as we have the WP 5.0 beta release, we have been testing and it is quite good to see the improvements. I hope it gets even better in the future.
You can get in touch with Abhishek Rijal and learn new things through his Facebook.