A Day of REST is an event devoted to the WordPress REST API. It’ll happen on January 28th 2016, with a follow-on hack day on the 29th, in London. It’s an exciting opportunity for developers to learn how to interact with the new WordPress REST API, and Post Status will be an official partner.

A Day of REST will be the first ever event dedicated to the WordPress REST API. It'll happen on January 28th 2016, with a follow-on hack day on the 29th, and will be held at Bishopsgate Institute in London, UK.

The event is aimed at developers who want to learn how to interact with the new WordPress REST API. From WordPress developers to Javascript developers, to application developers, A Day of REST promises to provide in-depth information that covers every aspect of the WordPress REST API.

This is exactly the kind of event I've been hoping to see in the WordPress community. Sessions will vary from an introduction to the WordPress REST API to in-depth case studies and guides on utilizing it in the real world.

It will be an incredible and rare opportunity to learn from the people making the API and those extending it further than anyone else. A niche event to be sure, A Day of REST is a big bet on the WordPress REST API — which is not yet slated for core, but is widely expected to make it to core in the next few releases.

The conference is being organized to supply a clear demand for more information, resources, and education on the subject. At most WordCamps, REST API sessions seem to be some of the most crowded, with the most engaged and curious audiences. A Day of REST will be like those sessions, but much bigger, as the entire day will be dedicated to the single topic.

Who is speaking at A Day of REST

The speaker roster consists of people who are building the WordPress REST API, and those who are already using it for production applications and websites. The speakers are:

Ryan McCue – WordPress REST API co-lead

Joe Hoyle – WordPress REST API team

Daniel Bachhuber – WordPress REST API team

Kathleen Vignos – Director of Engineering, WIRED

K. Adam White – Open Web Engineer, Bocoup

Jack Lenox – Design Engineer, Automattic

Scott Taylor – Senior Engineer, New York Times

Nikolay Bachiyski – Meta Engineer, Automattic

Post Status will be an official partner

I'm really pleased that Post Status will be the official content partner for A Day of REST. That means I’ll be attending the event, and I'll offer a number of in-depth posts related to the WordPress REST API, the sessions, interviews, and more.

I'll also manage content for some of the larger event announcements, like this one. I've known the organizers for a long time, and they are big supporters of Post Status. A Day of REST offers a really great opportunity for me to work with them and offer my readers some unique privileges and exclusive content for a subject that's of interest to most of my audience.

So who is organizing?

A Day of REST is organized by Human Made, who’ve brought on board Siobhan McKeown to lead the charge putting the event together.

Human Made uses the API in a good bit of their services and product work, are really interested to see more adoption of the API, and are eager to provide education resources so that can happen. Those of you who pay close attention may know that two of Human Made's own are actually part of the team of four that does much of the REST API development.

Ryan McCue is the project co-lead, and is generally steering the ship; the API started as his GSoC (Google Summer of Code) project years ago. Joe Hoyle is in day to day conversations for project direction and also commits a lot of code to the API; he is a co-founder of Human Made.

Hack Day

On 29th January 2016, there will be a WordPress REST API hack day. This event is being hosted by Mozilla Spaces in London. Space for the hack day is limited but the team would love for anyone interested to come along and help make the WordPress REST API. Bring a laptop and expect to get hacking. This event will be for building the REST API specifically, and not geared toward other projects.

Ticket details

Tickets are available from the website. They’re £125 (+ VAT & booking fees) — which ends up being around $235 US — and the price includes all of the usual conference goodies: presentations, lunch, swag, and an informal afterparty.

Confirmed sponsors

A Day of REST is excited to already have some awesome sponsors on board.

ProsPress – Gold sponsor

Gravity Forms – Gold sponsor

Sucuri – Gold sponsor

The team is also looking for more sponsors to get involved and help make this unique event happen. If you’d like to sponsor, send an email to events@humanmade.co.uk.

More information

Depending on the content, you can get updates either from this blog, or from the A Day of REST website, feelingrestful.com. You should also follow @feelingrestful on Twitter for live updates. I'll have in-depth content and broader event information and the event site will have more general announcements, news, and event updates.

London is quite accessible from much of the world, so I am hopeful and confident that there will be a diverse audience in attendance. I certainly look forward to visiting; and I was pleasantly surprised that it doesn't get as cold there as I thought; January temperatures (lows and highs) stay around the 40s (F, or 5-9° C) — which is likely warmer than it'll be where I live in January.

A Day of REST is an exciting development in the WordPress conference ecosystem and I'm confident it's going to be a huge success.