Episode 160 – A Chat With Grzegorz Ziółkowski

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Show Notes

This episode of Hallway Chats is a little different from previous episodes. Recently Cate and Topher had the opportunity to go to WordCamp Europe in Porto, Portugal, where we had some literal hallway chats. This 4one is with Grzegorz Ziółkowski.

Piccia’s Site: https://gziolo.pl/

Twitter | @gziolo

Episode Transcript

Topher: All right. So tell me your name. 

Greg: My name is Greg Ziolkowski. But I go by Greg because it’s just easier for everyone. 

Topher: Yes. Yeah. All right. And now what do you do? 

Greg: So I work at Automattic and I also do work full time on WordPress Core, and in particular Gutenberg Project. And it’s been five years since I started contributing to Gutenberg.

Topher: Oh, very beginning. 

Greg: I mean, not start. Like a few months after that. Exactly, you know, five years ago at WordCamp Europe was that first probably demonstration of that. So like three months after that I joined the team. I was working internally at Automattic with the whole community on-

Topher: So were hired to work on Gutenberg or you moved to Gutenberg?

Greg: No. I asked to be moved to Gutenberg.

Topher: Oh, you moved. You asked.

Greg: Yeah. I mean, I just like, asked, “How can I be part of the project?” 

Topher: That’s one of the things I’ve always liked about Automattic.

Greg: I also did some contribution to other products. And it worked, and here I am. 

Topher: Great. And you’re still happy with it?

Greg: Yes, I am. It took a lot of time to realize the vision. We are slowly getting to the point where it’s something that was like planned. It’s so great to see all the talks showing, all the power of the paradigm of logs, how it works, you know, seeing the excitement about new development over block patterns, block themes. 

Topher: That’s really cool. Is there a particular part that you worked on? 

Greg: Oh, so you know, it’s been five years, so it’s been different things that are- 

Topher: What are you working on now?

Greg: Right now, also the last two months I spent as a co-lead for editor test for WordPress 6.0 release. It’s always like more about making sure that everything gets properly moved from the Gutenberg plugin to WordPress Core. But, you know, it changes. I work a lot with the ways how people can build blocks. And that applies to API’s that are exposed to both the core but also to all extenders they’re plugging out, you know, team out also. And also have to develop tools that make it easier. You know, like the transition from PHP to Java it’s quite a journey.

Topher: It is.

Greg: So we are trying to make it more straightforward so that people can-

Greg: That’s great.

Topher: …start, like plays that and end slowly, learn how to tackle double. Any sort of like what you had in the past with PHP, like when people started, they didn’t know PHP.

Topher: Right.

Greg: But also you could play, tweak things in PHP back then. I’m also PHP developer. My first job was in PHP. So I know the experience. It was so easy to work with PHP.

Topher: I’m a PHP developer and I’m not a JavaScript developer, so I haven’t made that journey yet. 

Greg: I mean, JavaScript, if you use Node.js these days, it’s like PHP as well, like on the server. But as soon as you go to the browser and all the interactivity, it’s hard even for me to catch up with everything, with CSS and getting so advanced and JavaScript trying to take parts of CSS, like animations, and even combine them together to make some nice user experiences that try to replicate what you can do on mobile phones, which drive all that, right?

Topher: Right. Yeah. 

Greg: So I know. Even for me to catch up is a-

Topher: Once upon a time, CSS was my favorite thing. But then I looked away for six months, and when I came back, it was  Sass and SCSS and Grunt and Gulp, and other PHP. 

Greg: And all the things to make sure that it looks the same in all browsers, you know, like this prefix is for Firefox, for Chrome and so on. It’s getting even more advanced these days with new specs and new features and… yeah. 

Topher: It’s hard. So where do you live? 

Greg: I live in Poland. I work from there remotely, so it’s pretty convenient. 

Topher: The thing I know most about Poland is the salt mines with the carvings. 

Greg: Oh, yeah. Wieliczka?

Topher: Yeah. Do you live near there? 

Greg: Oh, it’s like three hours away driving distance. I’ve never been there. But it’s very popular. Like most of the family members know the place. It’s just I didn’t have a chance yet. 

Topher: I used to live near a great lake in Michigan. I live in Michigan. I used to live near the beach and I never went. It was crowded with the tourists. So we talked about where you live and what you do. How long did you travel to get here? 

Greg: Oh, that’s, you know-

Topher: Did you fly or train? 

Greg: I fly. 

Topher: Okay. 

Greg: That’s a story because we went to the Baltic Sea on vacation with my family. So it wasn’t like the regular/usual route to the place. So I had to go to the smaller airport. So I had to connect two flights. So it took like eight hours maybe-

Topher: Oh, wow.

Greg: …to do the connections. But usually, when I fly from home, it is like five hours tops with one connection. I always connect in Germany because from Germany you have many connections to all the cities in Europe. 

Topher: I’ve been through Frankfurt. 

Greg: Yeah, the same.

Topher: I assume this is not your first WordCamp Europe. 

Greg: No.

Topher: No. How many have you been to? 

Greg: So I was to WordCamp Vienna.

Topher: Awesome. 

Greg: Then WordCamp Belgrade in Serbia and Borkum, Berlin. 

Topher: I was there.

Greg: And then we head to-

Topher: And now we’re here. 

Greg: …to WordCamp part of… the European part of the remote. And here we are finally.

Topher: Do you go to small local ones?

Greg: So I was twice to WordCamp Poland. I spoke once and once as an attendee. I mean, there’s one next week, but I’m inclined by doing vacation thing, so I will miss that one, unfortunately.

Topher: Cool. Are you gonna be able to come to WordCamp US?

Greg: I think I will skip this year. Although it’s a smaller one than usual.

Topher: It is much smaller. 

Greg: What’s the reason for that?

Topher: Venue.

Greg: Venues, okay.

Topher: Venues are hard to find right now that things are coming back and everything’s booked.

Greg: Everyone wants to book. I’m not surprised to hear. Here it was so nice to see all the familiar faces.

Topher: Yeah. But it’s on the beach.

Greg: I know. Also flying from Europe to California is a super long flight.

Topher: Super long. I did East Coast to Sydney one time. That is super long flight. 

Greg: Super long. 

Topher: All right. I appreciate your time. It’s nice getting to know you. 

Greg: Happy to chat.