Jacob Martella (@arenapigskin) – WordPress user profile

Member Since: June 8th, 2011
Location: Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas
Website: jacobmartella.com
Job Title: Developer
Employer: Faith Growth, Inc.
Find me on:

Bio

Web development. Web design. Writing. Those are a few of my favorite things. Writing was my first love since I could remember. I wanted to become a sports journalist, and at the University of Texas at Austin, I accomplished just that. I graduated in May 2016 with a journalism degree, working four years at The Daily Texan and covering the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. But during that time, I developed another passion — web development. I discovered a love for creating things, especially with code. I self-taught myself the basics, graduated with an Elements of Computing Certificate from UT and now work as a junior developer at a development firm. It’s been a strange journey, but it’s one that’s been worth it.

Interests

Web Development, Web Design, reading, video, photography

WordPress Origin Story

I never thought I would be a WordPress developer.

For the vast majority of my life, I wanted to be a journalist. A sports journalist to be more specific. I grew up loving to play sports — especially baseball — and I developed a love of writing in the fourth grade.

So in high school, I joined the school newspaper covering the sports teams. At the University of Texas at Austin, I joined The Daily Texan. There I covered both golf teams, women’s soccer, softball, volleyball, baseball and basketball. Then in my final semester, I became the sports editor for the paper. And in August 2016, I got to go to Rio de Janeiro to cover the summer Olympics.

I ended up graduating with a journalism degree, but that’s not what I’ve been doing professionally. Instead, during that time there was another thing that kept trying to get my attention: web development.

My introduction to WordPress came at my high school newspaper. Fascinated by the software and wanting to learn more, I started my own WordPress site — a blog that covered arena football. As my time in high school went on, I became more interested in how WordPress worked.

Finally, in the summer after my high school graduation, I took the time to teach myself web development. I learned HTML, CSS, PHP and JavaScript and how WordPress worked. It definitely wasn’t the best learning, looking back at it now, but it was a start. And by the end of the summer, I had a custom theme for my arena football blog.

Eventually, my interest in arena football faded, but not my interest in web development. In fact, it was quite the opposite. I only became more intrigued by WordPress and web development. I took programming classes at UT and ended up with an Elements of Computing Certificate. And I created a theme for the WordPress theme directory.

But in the summer of 2014, web development went from a hobby to a job. Through an interesting set of circumstances, Christopher Harris hired me to be a development intern at his company, Faith Growth. It was the much-needed next step, and I learned a lot about how to properly do things in WordPress and web programming.

I now have a couple of more themes in the directory and a few plugins in the repository plus a premium sports plugin. I’ve also created numerous websites for churches and ministries at Faith Growth. But through all of that work, I hadn’t quite unlocked the true power of WordPress — the community.

In September 2016, I attended my first WordCamp DFW. Although I listened to a lot great talks, my biggest lesson came with how big and how awesome the WordPress community is. With WordPress and web development, it’s easy to feel like a lone wolf. I know that there are obviously online communities for WordPress, but it can be tough to feel that personal interaction online, especially for those of us who are just starting out.

But that WordCamp DFW got me excited about web development. Seeing so many people using the software and being excited about it gave me energy to keep going with WordPress and opened my eyes to what I could do with it.

After that experience, I became an active member of the Fort Worth WordPress Users MeetUp. There my experience with the WordPress community has only become more positive. I’ve met people who are wanting to learn more about WordPress and people who are willing to teach. It’s undoubtedly the best community I’ve ever been a part of.

Contribution History

Meetup Organizer
Photo Contributor
Plugin Developer
Theme Developer
WordCamp Organizer
WordCamp Speaker

Activity
Plugins
Themes
Photos

Committed [2857223] to Plugins SVN:
tagging version 2.1
7 days ago
Committed [2857221] to Plugins SVN:
Adding version 2.1
7 days ago
Created ticket #133372 on Themes Trac:
THEME: VideoPlace – 2.1
7 days ago
Committed [2848768] to Plugins SVN:
tagging version 2.1
3 weeks ago
Committed [2848767] to Plugins SVN:
adding version 2.1
3 weeks ago
Committed [2818652] to Plugins SVN:
tagging version 1.0
3 months ago
Committed [2818651] to Plugins SVN:
Adding assets to the plugin for the directory
3 months ago
Committed [2818650] to Plugins SVN:
Adding first version of my plugin
3 months ago
Created ticket #125624 on Themes Trac:
THEME: Semplice Monospazio – 1.1
5 months ago
Posted a reply to Default Fallback Image for Events, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
Hi Joe, Thanks for the reply. I figured that was the case. Thanks for the…
6 months ago
Created a topic, Default Fallback Image for Events, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
Hi, I was just wondering if there's a way to set a def…
6 months ago
Created ticket #121886 on Themes Trac:
THEME: VideoPlace – 2.0.4
7 months ago
Created ticket #121680 on Themes Trac:
THEME: Semplice Monospazio – 1.0.4
7 months ago
Created ticket #121584 on Themes Trac:
THEME: Semplice Monospazio – 1.0.3
7 months ago
Created ticket #118875 on Themes Trac:
THEME: Semplice Monospazio – 1.0.0
8 months ago
Committed [2725478] to Plugins SVN:
tagging version 2.0.1
9 months ago
Committed [2725477] to Plugins SVN:
adding version 2.0.1 files
9 months ago
Committed [2725476] to Plugins SVN:
adding version 2.0.1
9 months ago
Committed [2721417] to Plugins SVN:
tagging version 2.2
9 months ago
Committed [2721415] to Plugins SVN:
adding in version 2.2
9 months ago
Created ticket #116388 on Themes Trac:
THEME: Nuovo – 3.0.1
10 months ago
Committed [2701587] to Plugins SVN:
Adding in assets
10 months ago
Committed [2701586] to Plugins SVN:
Tagging version 2.1.6
10 months ago
Committed [2701585] to Plugins SVN:
Adding first version of my plugin
10 months ago
Committed [2539499] to Plugins SVN:
tagging version 2.0
2 years ago
Committed [2539496] to Plugins SVN:
adding in version 2.0
2 years ago
Committed [2534954] to Plugins SVN:
tagging version 2.0
2 years ago
Committed [2534943] to Plugins SVN:
adding in version 2.0
2 years ago
Committed [2532223] to Plugins SVN:
tagging version 2.0
2 years ago
Committed [2532221] to Plugins SVN:
Adding in version 2.0
2 years ago
Committed [2528737] to Plugins SVN:
tagging version 2.0
2 years ago
Committed [2528735] to Plugins SVN:
removing old files from trunk
2 years ago
Committed [2528732] to Plugins SVN:
adding version 2.0 to the trunk
2 years ago
Wrote a comment on the post WordPress 5.6: What’s on your wishlist?, on the site Make WordPress Core:
+1
3 years ago
Posted a reply to Add update button, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
Hi, I just pushed an update to the plugin which should now show the add…
3 years ago
Committed [2334572] to Plugins SVN:
tagging version 1.4.2
3 years ago
Committed [2334571] to Plugins SVN:
updating to version 1.4.2
3 years ago
Posted a reply to Add update button, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
Hi, So the good news is that I have the code that adds that update…
3 years ago
Posted a reply to No add content button, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
Hi, Sorry that you're running into this issue. I'm working on fixing the issue with…
3 years ago
Committed [2216451] to Plugins SVN:
actually updating to version 1.4.1
3 years ago
Posted a reply to Latest update crashed my site, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
Awesome! Glad I could help.
3 years ago
Committed [2216450] to Plugins SVN:
tagging version 1.4.1
3 years ago
Committed [2216449] to Plugins SVN:
tagging version 1.4.1
3 years ago
Committed [2216448] to Plugins SVN:
tagging version 1.9.2
3 years ago
Committed [2216447] to Plugins SVN:
adding version 1.9.2
3 years ago
Posted a reply to Latest update crashed my site, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
Ugh. Not sure what to think now. I can't reproduce that error for the life…
3 years ago
Posted a reply to Latest update crashed my site, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
Thanks. Just pushed out an update. Let me know if that fixed the problem. Now…
3 years ago
Committed [2216408] to Plugins SVN:
tagging version 1.9.1
3 years ago
Committed [2216406] to Plugins SVN:
adding version 1.9.1
3 years ago
Posted a reply to Latest update crashed my site, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
Thanks! It's not Gutenberg related, or at least directly. I'm calling that is_plugin_active function incorrectly.…
3 years ago