Interview with WCSTL Speaker: Mary Baum

Want to get more familiar with CSS Grids? Mary Baum can help, as her WordCamp St. Louis talk is on Momma’s Got a Brand-New Grid. Here’s a little about May’s WordPress journey.

Interview with Mary Baum

NILE FLORES: When did you start using WordPress?

MARY BAUM: Summer 2010. Bought into the Genesis Pro Pack a year later.

NILE FLORES: What are a few takeaways that attendees will get from your talk?

MARY BAUM: For layout, floats are dead (unless you want to wrap text around a shape — which will be a thing this summer. Yay @jensimmons!)

But don’t think Grid is just for grids. My degree is in asymmetry — with a capital A — asymmetry. And Grid helps me get much more intentional with that.

Breakpoints are a lie. See also, desktop views. Most people will see our sites on a mobile device of some kind. So the desktop view is really just for the brass at the client’s office and our own gratification.

NILE FLORES: WordPress is turning 15 years old. What would you like to see in the future for WordPress?

MARY BAUM: I think the futures of WordPress and the open web are closely tied. I want them both to thrive.

I hope layout in CSS keeps getting easier and more sophisticated. And that CSS doesn’t get tossed overboard in favor of inline styles in JS frameworks, on the web or in WP.

I hope that irrespective of the direction WordPress software takes, that the community stays strong and we all learn the new tools together. (I can guarantee that there will be new tools to learn, probably a few times, in the next fifteen years.)

NILE FLORES: “And just for funsies”, over the past few years, the WordPress community has seen the rise of the cute Wapuu character? Heard of it? And if so, what’s your favorite Wapuu? (Wapuu Reference: https://wapu.us/ )

MARY BAUM: I have!

And I’ve submitted my favorite to the Wapuu repo!

Meet Rapuu, the tennis-playing Wapuu! Mindful that some of the most inclusive clubs still want players to wear white, Rapuu knows neither gender nor nationality — and goes forth in search of a great tennis game and clean WordPress code, wherever they happen to converge on this blue marble we call a planet.

Ready? So is Rapuu. Time to grab your gear and serve ‘em up!

NILE FLORES: What is your favorite area of the WordPress admin?

MARY BAUM: I spend most of my time in the list of posts. I’m liking the Customizer more and more for widgets and menus.

NILE FLORES: What are the top three WordPress plugins that you believe every WordPress user should have installed?

MARY BAUM: EVERY user?

1. Regenerate Thumbnails;

2. I’m a Jetpack lover, not a hater.
3. WP-Spamshield.

Designers and developers should also be using What the File.


Want to meet Mary and pick her brain about CSS Grids? Then, get your ticket to WordCamp St. Louis today!