Meet Our New PHP Developer, Dan!

We’re super excited to introduce the newest member of the Hush Digital team, Dan, who’s bringing a wealth of web development experience and passion for new tech to our projects.

Dan’s journey in web development has been over a decade in the making, and he’s here to share a bit about his expertise and the tools and trends he’s following to keep our clients at the forefront of the digital landscape.

Personal Development Insights

Dan first dipped his toes into web design in 2010, but by 2012, he was doing both design and development, finding his stride on a little-known online marketplace at the time called themeforest.net, where he began selling HTML templates. It was the start of his passion for building blogs and back-end coding, leading him to specialise in WordPress theme development. Over the past 12 years, Dan has delved into an array of technologies like PHP, SCSS, and frameworks like PHP Slim, which he’s still exploring and expanding his knowledge in.

WordPress Plugins to Watch

For Dan, flexibility is key, and he often opts for custom-built plugins to get just the right result for each project. For day-to-day use, though, he keeps Yoast handy for SEO needs and uses Codestar Framework to build metaboxes and admin option pages. Another favourite is Advanced Custom Fields (ACF), which he relies on to set up custom fields and options quickly.

Go-To Development Software Tools

Dan’s development toolkit includes Visual Studio Code and Notepad++ as his go-to editors, each offering unique features he finds invaluable. He also uses PrePros for compiling, transpiling, and FTP file uploads and Fork for version control management. Now that he’s joined us at Hush, he’s shifting towards Gulp for compiling and GitKraken for version control, tools he finds streamline his workflow even more effectively.

Current Industry Trends

Dan’s noticed that AI is increasingly becoming a staple in web development, whether it’s generating articles, creating images, or producing code snippets. However, he wonders if we might be leaning on it a bit too much! In terms of design, neumorphism, with its blend of material design elements, and dark mode, which is easier on the eyes, are two trends he sees shaping user interfaces. From his recent client interactions, he’s also observed a shift towards simpler UIs, with ease of use front and centre.

Forecast for 2025

Looking ahead, Dan predicts AI will only become more advanced and widely integrated. WordPress, too, is likely to expand its block editor, giving developers more hooks and layout types to work with. He also believes now is the perfect time for developers to learn new frameworks like React, especially for mobile and app development, given how central smartphones have become in everyday life.

Looking Forward

Dan’s excited about the journey ahead with the Hush team. “I’ve come a long way with my skills, and I’m looking forward to learning and improving even more by working with the team at Hush Digital. With some high-profile clients in their portfolio, it should be an exciting time to be a developer!”

We’re delighted to have Dan on board and can’t wait to see how his skills and insights will help us continue delivering amazing results for our clients. Welcome to Hush, Dan! 👋🖥️