Malcolm Peralty

This is the final part of a six-part series. [Part 1] made the case for splitting WordPress into Classic and Next. [Part 2] talked about the kernel. [Part 3] talked about the admin and editor. [Part 4] covered performance and security. [Part 5] talked about the plugin economy and the contracts that hold it together.… Read more

This is part 5 of a six-part series. [Part 1] made the case for splitting WordPress into Classic and Next. [Part 2] talked about the kernel. [Part 3] talked about the admin and editor. [Part 4] covered performance and security. This post is about the plugin economy and the contracts that hold it together (or… Read more

This is part 4 of a series on splitting WordPress into two products, Classic and Next. [Part 1] made the case for the split. [Part 2] talked about the kernel. [Part 3] talked about the admin and editor. This post is about performance and security. I’m grouping them together because they share a structural trait.… Read more

This is part 3 of a series. [Part 1] made the case for splitting WordPress into Classic and Next. [Part 2] talked about the kernel underneath. Now I want to talk about what’s happening above the kernel, in the admin and the editor. I want to say something up front because it shapes the entire… Read more

This is part 2 of a series. [Part 1 made the case for splitting WordPress into Classic and Next.] This post gets into the runtime itself. What Classic keeps, and what Next burns down. A quick aside on PSR, since I’m going to use it a lot Before I get into any of this, I… Read more

Every plugin author, agency lead, and host I know has some version of this argument running in their head, and most of them aren’t going to write it down. So I’m writing it down, in public for anyone to push back on or dig deeper into. A bit of background on where I’m coming from.… Read more

I was at DrupalCon Chicago earlier this year representing Pressable as part of the Automattic for Agencies presence there. If you don’t know, I spent over two years at Acquia as a Technical Account Manager (eventually becoming a Senior TAM) before moving to Pressable, so DrupalCon felt a bit like visiting a neighbourhood I used… Read more

Starting at Pressable as a Technical Account Manager has been exciting. Genuinely exciting. It has also been a harder transition than I think people sometimes assume when they see a new title and a new company logo. Leaving Acquia was not easy for me. Not because I was running from something, but because Acquia took… Read more

I work in hosting, so I spend a lot of time thinking about the gap between what website hosting costs and the value people expect from it. Note: I currently work for Pressable, and previously worked for Acquia. I also co-ran a small managed WordPress hosting company called PressTitan for several years. I am extremely… Read more

I have been watching videos about people using AI for all kinds of things, and one of the ways people have been using it that was interesting to me was to write a novel. I have co-authored a book before with my now-wife, Annie, but I have never completed one on my own. So I… Read more

I’ve done this twice before, and so wanted to try again to see how much AI has improved over the last two and a half years. My first attempt was in December 2022, and my second was in March 2023. I gave ChatGPT 5.1 the following prompt: Can you write me a short story that’s… Read more

I have made it past two years at Acquia, and I am very pleased with my personal progress and growth. For those interested, check out my one year review. In November 2024, I was promoted to a Senior Technical Account manager. I have been told by my manager that I might be the fastest to… Read more