JavaScript Chat Summary, June 4, 2019

Below is a summary of the discussion from this week’s JavaScriptJavaScript JavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser. chat (agendaSlack Transcript)

Have a topic for discussion for the next meeting? Leave a suggested edit on next week’s agenda.

Agenda: June 18 Meeting Planning

Slack Conversation

Neither @adamsilverstein nor @aduth will be able to host the meeting scheduled for June 18. Is there anyone willing to host that day, or should we plan to cancel the meeting for that week? This is the Tuesday before WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Europe, so there may be lower-than-usual attendance.

Decision: There will be no JavaScript meeting on June 18.

Agenda: Dependabot Follow-up

Slack Conversation

Discussed in last week’s meeting, a bot has been submitting security update pull requests to the gutenberg-examples repository. It was discovered that this was a default behavior from GitHub’s acquisition and integration of Dependabot.

Proposal: If there will be a workflow which requires corresponding upstream patches for the WordPress coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. project, we should document it.

Since the pull requests are not being submitted to the GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. repository, this workflow may not be necessary. The examples repository is standalone and is not mirrored upstream in any fashion.

Agenda: Broader Impact of Gutenberg Patterns

Slack Conversation

@nerrad raised a concern that patterns developed in Gutenberg may conflictconflict A conflict occurs when a patch changes code that was modified after the patch was created. These patches are considered stale, and will require a refresh of the changes before it can be applied, or the conflicts will need to be resolved. or overlap with patterns in the broader wp-adminadmin (and super admin) interface.

Example: The “Snackbar” iteration is relevant in the conversation about notifications in the administration screens.

Question: Are features which land in the pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the Plugin Directory or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party guaranteed to make their way to stable WordPress release? Answer: It’s not intended to be a given, iterations and feedback are to be solicited, and features can be guarded behind feature flags or dropped altogether. But ultimately, the current release workflow does result in most of these being put on a track toward a stable release.

Question: How do we avoid siloed decision-making?


  • These should be discussed beforehand in relevant teams with audiences outside Gutenberg specifically (#design was raised as having discussed this specific “Snackbar” iteration).
  • There should be some TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. conversation for the broader implications of the specific feature, and if/when this exists, regular updates should be provided to share iterations and solicit feedback.

Next Steps: Discuss the question of process for how decisions made in Gutenberg are handled in making their way to WordPress core. What are the problems, and who makes the decisions? Consider as a discussion point for a future devchat.

Open Floor

Slack Conversation

@nerrad shared that the useDispatch ReactReact React is a JavaScript library that makes it easy to reason about, construct, and maintain stateless and stateful user interfaces. hook is now available for use in Gutenberg master (pull request, documentation). This complements the useSelect React hook which had been merged last week (pull request, documentation).

@nerrad plans to publish a post about these new hooksHooks In WordPress theme and development, hooks are functions that can be applied to an action or a Filter in WordPress. Actions are functions performed when a certain event occurs in WordPress. Filters allow you to modify certain functions. Arguments used to hook both filters and actions look the same. on his own personal blogblog (versus network, site), and may cross-post or adapt the content into a post for Make/Core (this blog).

@gziolo shared that he has been making progress on improvements to the @wordpress/scripts package tools, including default paths for linting scripts, ensuring the build folder is ignored from validation (pull request), and supporting multiple entry points for build (pull request).

#core-js, #javascript