This month I had the great opportunity to interview Joomla Development Manager David Hurley.  David walks us through some of the top Joomla development skills and how he's achieved them over the years.  Hope you enjoy the interview!

What are you working on right now?

This is a hard question to answer in only a short paragraph! Currently I am working on finalizing and launching the new Developer site for Joomla at http://developer.joomla.org. I'm working on a couple sponsor / business outreach Joomla sites with OSM. I'm helping organize, test and code the 3.1, 3.2, and 3.5 versions for Joomla. I'm working on some additional marketing materials for first timers. I have many exciting opportunities to attend and speak at a number of JoomlaDay events. I'm continuing to write the development series for the Joomla! magazine, and finally, I'm working on a super exciting new Joomla project that I hope to be able to share in the very near future (stay tuned). And that's just what I'm working on right now! I know this list sounds ridiculous, but I've been able to make some incredible connections and there are many, many amazing individuals working with me.

What does your typical day look like?

I usually get up around 6AM, I'll quickly read through my emails and catch up on what happened overseas (because Joomla never sleeps). My faith is an important part of my life and I devote time each morning to help me start my day with the right focus. Next I'll spend some time with my children before taking my oldest daughter to school, and driving to the office to begin my work day. My Skype is active from the minute I wake up and continues throughout the day and I spend a good bit of my day in multiple conversations. I also keep in touch through the mailing lists, twitter accounts, the bug tracker and emails. I have multiple monitors on my desk, one with twitter and live chat, one with Skype and the JBS tracker, and then my code and emails on the central one. I bounce around a lot and I like to track multiple things at once. I'll write some code, respond to an email, test a bug, or chime in on a Skype chat. I head home around 6PM, spend time with my family until after 9PM when the kids are all in bed and things have settled down. After that I'll usually continue work for a bit longer. This is my serious code time. I don't spend much time in communication channels but focus heavily on code development, structure, and architecture. Typically I'll call it a night around 2AM and get ready to start things over again the next day!

As a Joomla expert, what is one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?

That is a very interesting question, but one I'm very glad you've asked. If there was only one thing I could recommend it would be to listen. The skill of listening to others is one which I have not achieved but I find myself always striving to do better. Listening rather than talking; hearing the opinions, ideas, and thoughts of others not only helps me to understand them but also makes me a better advocate and communicator myself. Joomla is such a fantastic community of people from around the world and there will be different thoughts and opinions. Listening to each other helps our community grow stronger. At the end of the day, I believe relationships are what truly matter and listening is an active way to demonstrate that focus.

How do you bring ideas to life?

I consider myself a highly motivated individual. I like to solve problems and puzzles and I see ideas as a form of a puzzle. Once I have an idea for something I seek out ways to solve that puzzle and make the idea a reality. The best resource for bringing an idea to life? Seeking out other individuals who will share my idea and can help me accomplish it. There are plenty of people more skilled and smarter than I am and trusting their expertise helps me accomplish my ideas. I like to motivate, and I love to get people involved and working towards a common goal. Thinking outside the box and then empowering others is awesome and there are not many things which can compare to getting people passionate about ideas and seeing them motivated to work on them.

What's one trend that really excites you?

I'm really excited by the Joomla trend. I mean that 100 percent. Joomla is experiencing some tremendous attention and change right now and I find that exciting; even more than just exciting. There are some absolutely incredible developments taking place, new developers getting involved, existing developers finding new focus, new bug testers, faster testing procedures, improved documentation, translations, updated designs and user interfaces, fantastic global outreaches, and so many more aspects of the community coming together. I see a very strong trend forming in the Joomla community and it's completely exciting to be a part of it.

What's on your playlist?

I'm an extremely eclectic listener. I literally listen to a little bit of everything. Depending on my mood I can be caught playing anything from: O.C.M.S, Johnny Cash, Green Day, Tim McGraw, Ryan Adams, Zac Brown Band, Fiona Apple, Bowerbirds, Florence + The Machine, Birdy, Amon Amarth, Imperial Mammoth, Mozart, Beethoven and many many more. And I'm always interested in finding others; so if anyone has suggestions for me, I'd love to hear them.

If you weren't working as Community Development Manager, what would you be doing?

I would probably be doing some of the same things I'm currently doing. I can't see how I would not want to contribute to Joomla. I clearly am excited about the Joomla trend and want to be involved in its future. I might focus a bit more on a commercial approach and perhaps spend more time in serious development mode writing new applications on the Framework.

Where do you think Joomla will go in the next few years?

Joomla has massive potential to see continued growth in the next few years and beyond. The recently proposed Joomla CMS Roadmap outlines some key focus points that will help Joomla not only stay relevant but really set the standard for what is expected from a web platform. There is such a very large market share of sites not using any type of management system and once those people see what has been done and what is happening with Joomla, the growth could very easily be exponential. I have some grand ideas for the next few years and I look forward to working with the Joomla community to develop and implement some truly unbelievable new features.