Refactoring Expectations

As WordPress users, developers, designers or even entrepreneurs, the degree of happiness and success we experience (and spread!) around the WordPress ecosystem may very well correlate with our expectations and how they are satisfied.

By refactoring our expectations instead of blaming a theme, plugin, the core, our clients or customers we put ourself in a responsible position from where we are able to contribute effectively to both our own success and the WordPress community.

Transcript

1. Refactoring Expectations.
2. Why? So they* can be met! *here: positive expectations
3. Can avoid disappointment and hard feelings.
4. Can change future experiences.
5. What’s an expectation?
6. ex spectare [lat.] to look out
7. A belief centered on the future regarding an assumed outcome.
8. The most likely to happen.
9. Expectation met? Happy!
10. Not met? Unhappy.
11. What really happens when we feel unhappy, disappointed or irritated about an expectation not met is we’re experiencing…
12. …the fallacy of contradiction.
13. What’s a contradiction?
14. $a != $a —or— a + b != a + b (var_dump these!)
15. A contradiction is something that cannot and does not exist.
16. Contradictions are usually created in our minds when we as humans fail to accept a universal event as real and therefore true.
17. Expectation not met. ‚
18. Expectation not met. ‚ Default?
19. Expectation not met. ‚ - deny Default?
20. Expectation not met. ‚ - deny - create a contradiction Default?
21. Expectation not met. ‚ - deny - create a contradiction - emote Default?
22. Expectation not met. ‚ - deny - create a contradiction - emote - get stuck Default?
23. Expectation not met. ‚ - deny - create a contradiction - emote - get stuck - get others stuck Default?
24. Expectation not met. ‚ - deny - create a contradiction - emote - get stuck - get others stuck - be unhappy Default?
25. Expectation not met. ‚ - deny - create a contradiction - emote - get stuck - get others stuck - be unhappy (… until … eventually …) Default?
26. Expectation not met. ‚ - deny - create a contradiction - emote - get stuck - get others stuck - be unhappy (… until … eventually …) Choice! Default?
27. Expectation not met. ‚ - deny - create a contradiction - emote - get stuck - get others stuck - be unhappy (… until … eventually …) - accept Choice! Default?
28. Expectation not met. ‚ - deny - create a contradiction - emote - get stuck - get others stuck - be unhappy (… until … eventually …) - accept - understand Choice! Default?
29. Expectation not met. ‚ - deny - create a contradiction - emote - get stuck - get others stuck - be unhappy (… until … eventually …) - accept - understand - learn Choice! Default?
30. Expectation not met. ‚ - deny - create a contradiction - emote - get stuck - get others stuck - be unhappy (… until … eventually …) - accept - understand - learn - move on Choice! Default?
31. Expectation not met. ‚ - deny - create a contradiction - emote - get stuck - get others stuck - be unhappy (… until … eventually …) - accept - understand - learn - move on - keep energy flowing Choice! Default?
32. Expectation not met. ‚ - deny - create a contradiction - emote - get stuck - get others stuck - be unhappy (… until … eventually …) - accept - understand - learn - move on - keep energy flowing - be happy Choice! Default?
33. So what about the refactoring part?
34. Accept. Ok, this is not the way I expected it.
35. Understand. Why is it the way it is?
36. Learn. What premise was my expectation based upon?
37. Move on. I’m going to check my premises earlier next time!
38. Keep energy flowing. I’m going to remember this next time I feel pissed of.
39. Be happy. Create an expectation that is likely to be met. ☺
40. So. Refactoring expectations really means validating our premises, make smarter premises and come up with expectations likely to be met.
41. Examples.
42. “When I activate this plugin, it’s going to fit my theme just fine.”
43. “When I activate this plugin, I might have to adjust the CSS of my theme.”
44. “WordPress is free, support is going to be free as well.”
45. “Within an open source community I might have to give something in order to receive.”
46. “If we keep filing tickets requesting core to be refactored, they’ll eventually let us refactor core.”
47. “Backwards compatibility is always going to win.”
48. “If we keep MP6ing the back-end, users are never going to notice how terrible TinyMCE really is.”
49. “It is terrible.”
50. “If users want plugins instead of themes with featuritis, they are going to let us know.”
51. “We are the industry. If we don’t know better, who will?”
52. “If we keep building WordPress websites that take 20 seconds to load on an African university bandwidth, WordPress will still power 20% of the web in 2023.”
53. “If we want WordPress to become an operating system for the web, we should get down to business with democratizing publishing.”
54. Thanks!
55. Caspar Hübinger @glueckpress inpsyde.com