Dear Rocky,
Thanks a lot for accepting to answer our interview! Your contribution in our Community is greatly appreciated by our whole Team. Today we would like to give the floor to those who make our Community alive…
With 10,000 messages soon posted on the forum, you’re one of our most active members! Let’s talk about your experience with PrestaShop!
Hi Rocky, can you present yourself?
My name is Adrian Nethercott. I’m an Australian. I was born in Melbourne, Victoria, but I now live in Townsville, Queensland. I graduated from James Cook University with a Bachelor of Information Technology with Honours Class I. I spent two years working on a PhD before deciding that I wanted to be a programmer rather than a researcher.
How did you discover PrestaShop?
I was introduced to PrestaShop when I worked for a web development company for 18 months. They had evaluated all the e-commerce solutions available at the time and decided that PrestaShop was the best one, so they used it to create e-commerce stores for their clients. After leaving the company, I started my own PrestaShop web development website, Nethercott Constructions, where I have continued to work on PrestaShop websites and create modules.
What made you feel like joining the Community?
I originally joined the PrestaShop community to become more experienced with PrestaShop. After a while, I started to enjoy helping others on the forums, so I spent a lot of time answering questions.
You have a great number of contributions on the Forum, how much time do you spend on the Forum per day?
I used to spend a few hours every day moderating the forums and answering questions. Unfortunately, now that I’m getting lots of work through my website, I don’t have much time left to dedicate to the forums. I still do some moderating and answer a few questions each week. I also try to answer any questions related to my own PrestaShop modules as quickly as I can.
What are, according to you, PrestaShop’s assets?
I believe PrestaShop has three great assets. First, its use of Smarty allows for great flexibility in the theme without embedding PHP code blocks. Second, its use of modules makes it easy to add new functionality to PrestaShop and remove unneeded functionality. Lastly, its use of overrides makes it easy to modify existing functionality while leaving the original files untouched.
What software do you use alongside PrestaShop?
I use Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 to edit code and upload files and Adobe Photoshop CS5 for creating and editing images. I’ve tried to use free, open-source alternatives to these programs, but I always end up returning to Adobe’s proprietary software, since it works better for me. I do use Eclipse for SVN though.
What PrestaShop features do you love the most?
My favourite feature is the combine, compress and cache (CCC) option. Enabling all the CCC options except the last one greatly improves the speed of my website while keeping it standards-compliant. I also like the customer service and one-page checkout features.
Which advice would you give to a new member of our Community?
Before you start to modify PrestaShop, make sure you are doing it the right way. Copy the default PrestaShop theme before you start to modify it. Learn how to override classes and controllers instead of modifying them directly, otherwise you will make it difficult to upgrade in the future. You can read more about PrestaShop’s structure and the right way to modify PrestaShop in my PrestaShop Development Guide.
Something you would like to add?
I would like to thank the PrestaShop team for giving us their e-commerce solution for free and giving us full access to the source code to modify as we see fit. It’s allowed me to build a successful web development business. I wish the PrestaShop team luck in continuing to improve PrestaShop and make it the best e-commerce solution available.
Thanks a lot for your answers!