Anti-Glossary

Clarity and humanity live at the center of our vocabulary when we talk about people. Automattic prefers a friendlier approach to the typical jargon for talking about staffing, hiring, and moving people. We avoid ambiguity by using a specific word or phrase to communicate the exact need.

Automattic’s “Expectations” page excerpt

I contributed to the public anti-glossary because I believe words matter. How we talk about people in a group, company, organization frames — and reveals our values.

My favorite example is “replace” instead of “backfill.”

Backfill — Simpler and more clear to use a verb such as replace. A common reason would be to hire or move someone after a departure.

A friendlier, more clear approach to how we speak about each other.

Principles of writing consistent, idiomatic CSS

Matt Wiebe linked up a piece of required CSS reading from Nicholas Gallagher.

You Should Follow ThemeShaper

I’m blogging about WordPress themes and theme development over at the ThemeShaper blog.

My first two posts are up:

I’ll be posting more at ThemeShaper.com over time so make sure you grab the RSS feed to receive notifications about new posts.

See also my fellow Theme Wrangler Ian Stewart’s introductory post, What Is The Automattic Theme Team?