Peter Wilson

Category: Talks

  • I’m speaking at Web Directions Enqueue

    I’m thrilled to be part of the line up for Web Directions Enqueue, co presented by The Code Company, on November 28, 2025. Enqueue is to be one of the first engineering focused WordPress conferences in Australia, and the line up includes some of the best engineering minds in WordPress today, including Jono Alderson, Tammie Lister, Isabel Brison, Cameron Jones and too many more to mention.

    I’ll be doing a deep dive into the performance improvements WordPress Contributors have added to the Query classes in recent years. 

    The WordPress Performance team was established in 2021 with the goal of improving the performance of WordPress Core. As a fundamental part of rendering each and every page of a WordPress site, the WP_Query class has received a lot of attention.

    In this talk, Peter will discuss how the performance of WP_Query and the WordPress Query component have been improved with increased caching, and how that can be taken full advantage of when building WordPress sites at scale.

    There will also be talks about integrating WordPress with LLMs, accessibility and developer workflows.

    Enqueue is taking place in Sydney on November 28, 2025 in the beautiful Dr Chau Chak Wing Building at UTS (the paper bag building). It will also be streamed via Conffab if you’re unable to make it in person.

  • Respond 16: Performance – HTTP2 in a 1.5 World

    As we transition from HTTP 1.1 to HTTP 2, developers need to consider how the visitor’s protocol affects the performance of our sites. Code that improves performance over one protocol, can hinder performance over the other.

    HTTP2 is the first major update to the HTTP protocol in around 20 years, taking into account the way we use the web today. Even front-end developers can benefit from an understanding of the protocols.

    Earlier this year I spoke about HTTP2 and performance at Web Directions Respond in both Melbourne and Sydney. If you were unable to attend, here’s the video of the Melbourne event followed by the slides. (more…)

  • WordPress Melbourne: Contributing code to core

    Last night I spoke at WordPress Melbourne about contributing code to the WordPress core. The slide deck is below. (more…)

  • WordCamp Brisbane

    I had the pleasure of speaking at WordCamp Brisbane recently. The video and my slides are below, following the slides are links to the resources mentioned in my talk. (more…)

  • Web Directions Respond 15

    I’m speaking at Web Directions Respond in March, come along.

    It features travelling guests Scott Jehl, Yesenia Perez-Cruz and Andrew Clarke, along with a bunch of local designers and developers.

    I attended the first Respond in 2014 and it changed the way I work.

  • WordCamp Sydney Slides

    WordCamp Sydney Slides

    I presented an expanded version of my CSS Naming Conventions talk at WordCamp Sydney. Thanks to everyone who came along, my slides are below.

    I’ve put together a quick one page site linking to various resources at cssnamingconventions.com.

    (more…)

  • CSS Naming Conventions – Be Responsive

    I had the pleasure of speaking at Be Responsive Melbourne last month on the subject of CSS Naming Conventions.

    Both my slides and the video from the evening are now available. (more…)

  • Speaking at What Do You Know Melbourne

    I’ll be speaking at Web Directions’ What Do You Know Melbourne — The Smackdown Edition on August 27. You should come along.

    There will be eight speakers debating four topics for five minutes each. Plenty of variety without going on too long. I’ll be arguing RWD is better than an m-dot site.

  • Deciding to be wrong

    Deciding to be wrong

    When writing code, you don’t make a considered decision about every line you write. Much of it is instinct, you’re following your standard practises.

    Standard practises are based on past decisions. As technology has improved, these decisions may no longer be valid. Without care, it’s easy to become stuck in a cycle of producing outdated code.

    (more…)

  • Specificity, SMACSS and WordPress

    At the June WordPress Melbourne Meetup, I spoke about CSS Specificity, SMACSS and WordPress. I had a great time, the video and slides are below. (more…)