Andrei Lupu Interview on #Gutenberg - Im excited that the WordPress users will finally get a creative UI

This past month, we attended our local WordCamp,  WordCamp Bucharest. At the event, we had a chance to interview several interesting WordPress folks and get their unique perspectives on WordPress. One of these great (and funny) people was our former colleague, Andrei Lupu (aka The Wolf), who had an interesting presentation about the upcoming Gutenberg editor.Before we get to Gutenberg, have you had a chance to read our latest interview with Sami Keijonen, a member of the WordPress Accessibility team? You can check out Sami, and all our other interviews, at our Pirate Interviews page.Now, back to Andrei!  Ã°Å¸â„¢â€šAndrei Lupu is a proud Gutenberg-er. To be honest, sailing against the current of Gutenberg critics is not easy, but Andrei is happily preaching his excitement for the page builder every chance he gets.His philosophy is simple: people need to be more open to the new and stop thinking about the good old days all the time. Otherwise, we would still be using floppy disks, wouldnt we?Andrei used to be a part of the ThemeIsle family, where he was crafting our themes and plugins from the back-end. Now, hes still Gutenberg-ing and programming, but on his own. You can find him sharing dev insights on  his personal blog and contributing to WordPress in many different ways.This interview is all about Gutenberg, but we wont get too technical! Our talk is more about learning to embrace innovation and adapt to a new perspective.To learn more about Andreis thoughts on Gutenberg, you can read the text version below or watch the video to the right (or both!). Then, let us know your thoughts in the comments.Delayed thread of our interview with @euthelup at #WCBuc over the weekend. Despite all the problems with #Gutenberg Andrei has some exciting stuff to share.Question 1: Did you grown an impressive beard to be more like Gutenberg? pic.twitter.com/OgEELaaEZ5 ThemeIsle (@ThemeIsle) October 30, 2018 You said Gutenberg is great for writers, so why should devs get excited?Andrei Lupu:Well, Gutenberg is pretty much of a wonder from a technological point of view. There are many modern tools used in there, which is very interesting. So Im not sure its all about the content, its also about the technical part. This is what I love about it.What are you most excited about?Andrei Lupu:Im excited that the WordPress users will be finally served with a creative user interface. An easy to use one. Until now, we kind of had our struggle with using the old editor but, as I can see, many people come and say Hey, I love Gutenberg, its very easy to use, I think that it will rock.Which Gutenberg myth is most untrue?Andrei Lupu:I dont know, I guess the one that you cannot create meta boxes the old meta boxes that developers are all worried about. But thats kind of false because the way you could create your own meta boxes as of today, now you can create your own sidebar API or blocks or you name it. You just have to learn the process. But its a false myth tha t Oh, its impossible to do that now. No, its possible, you just have to do it.What do we need to have a great Gutenberg theme?Andrei Lupu:I think that, right now, we somehow need a new perspective, we need a new way of creating themes with this new editor. Because we are bringing a ton of old things into the discussion. And, to be honest, I recently changed the theme on my website. I was searching a lot and couldnt find a great theme, but Im pretty happy with my choice at this moment.What are the great things about Gutenberg?Andrei Lupu:This update will bring a better user experience for authors, not necessarily for developers. But for developers, because I am one, it brings some sort of new rules, new ground for the JavaScript environment. Because until now we had standardization only in the server side, only PHP developers had this kind of rules. But now we are getting rules in the JavaScript part, in the browser, where there was a jungle before: everyone created their own interfa ce, their own style.Now, Gutenberg comes and says Hey, this is our style from now on. Here you put your sidebar, here you put your icons, your buttons, your shortcodes. There are boundaries that come with Gutenberg, which I think is a good thing.Any sage-like wisdom for those of us who are worried about the update?Andrei Lupu:It comes with a deadline. People are scared that if they cant do it until the end of November, something bad will happen. There are alternatives, its a learning process. You can learn Gutenberg the same way you learned PHP, creating shortcodes or meta boxes.Should people start using Gutenberg now? Why?Andrei Lupu:Yes the sooner, the better. At least only in some safe environment or local environment. And just test it, its not going to bite or so. Okay, I know that you already have articles maybe thousands of articles written in the old fashion and its hard to add Gutenberg there. Just replicate that environment, those websites somewhere safe, try it, and Im pretty sure that it will be a pleasant experience.What happens if you install Gutenberg over your old content? Will this change affect it?  Andrei Lupu:It depends on what kind of setup you have on your website. Because if you have WordPress as it is, it will probably automatically convert it and it will be safe to use Gutenberg. But the problem comes when people are using editing plugins or old shortcodes or something like that. Their plugins somehow interfere with the content. There is a problem because the person who created the plugin must also come now and create some sort of a transformation process. Without that developer doing so, it will break. But the API, the documentation, the docs are there anyone can do it. Its free. I mean, its supposed to be an easy process in a way but, again, its hard. I dont know why.Will Gutenberg get you to start blogging again?Andrei Lupu:Yes, I didnt publish an article for a year. Actually right now Im publishing my WordCamp Bucharest present ation. But I really hope that, at some point, Ill come back to writing one article per month or something like that. I wish to do that. Thinking that Gutenberg will bring an easy process for me to create reusable content parts, some code snippets that Id like to use or share an example of if Im going to create a block in Gutenberg for that, probably Im going to publish more.Did you grow an impressive beard to be more like Gutenberg?Andrei Lupu:Oh, my beard! No, I actually grew my beard to look more like my name, which is Andrew The Wolf (Andrei Lupu means Andrew The Wolf in Romanian). So lets keep the appearances with the name. Andrei Lupu (@euthelup) #interviewed at ThemeIsle | #Gutenberg #WordPress Click To Tweet That sums up our Andrei Lupu interview. If you have any questions for him, please leave them in the comments section.Also, if you have any suggestions for who we should talk to next, feel free to give us some names, as well!Free guide5 Essential Tips to Speed Up Your Wor dPress SiteReduce your loading time by even 50-80% just by following simple tips.