Meta Q&A:
Wade Sakundiak, Happy Camper

Meta Q&A is back, and we once again visit our neighbor to the north, Canada. In the regal city of Regina, Saskatchewan, web developer Wade Sakundiak is one happy camper. He's a "content first" kind of fella who adores ExpressionEngine and solving problems for clients. Sakundiak can be found tweeting at @wades and will soon have a shiny new site at http://happycamper.me.

MQ: What do you love/hate about ExpressionEngine?

WS: I love a lot about it! If I were to narrow it down to just a few aspects that I adore, number one would have to be templates; I like my markup to remain my markup without any interference from the CMS. EE makes it easy for me to take my static files and convert them for content without any muck. Secondly, I'd probably say that the ease of creating custom fields is a big selling point for me. I'm a "content first" sort of fella so I tend to examine real world supplied content and build out in a way that makes it easy for site owners to enter that content consistently. EE shines in this arena.

MQ:  Tell us about your work in 140 characters or less.

WS: I guess if I were to describe how I work, I'd say I aim to develop with standards in mind and usually gravitate towards concise solutions.

MQ: What's your favorite thing about doing web development/design?

WS: Solving problems. Granted, the problems I'm solving aren't high-level like world hunger or homelessness, but I get a great deal of satisfaction from solving (or attempting to solve) problems that exist for real people. If I can contribute to someone's professional or personal growth, it really does wonders for my own.

MQ: What do you do when you can't solve a development/design problem?

WS: Crank some music. That's the easiest way for me to clear my head and take a break, though that's not to say it isn't without its hazards. If I'm getting really into a record, I can zone out and lose track of time. I should probably work on that.

MQ: Why use EE? How do you sell clients on using EE?

WS: Honestly, I've never had to sell someone on ExpressionEngine over something else. I guess my assumption has been that if someone is coming to me for a job, there's an unspoken agreement that I'm better suited to choose the technology based on requirements. That's not to say that ExpressionEngine is always the best tool for the job, but it's number one in the small toolkit I carry. If a client has different requirements, my ethics would lead me to recommend another developer. I'm not comfortable with "learning on the job," when there are others whose skill set on another platform would be a better fit.

MQ: My favorite EE add-on is: __________

WS: Pixel & Tonic's Matrix. It's just brilliant

MQ: My favorite site I did in EE is: __________

WS: Whichever one I'm working on at the time.

MQ: My favorite site someone else did in EE is: __________

WS: Steinway and Sons by Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain (design) and I believe the development was internal. I have a huge man-crush on Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain. His work is stunning.

MQ: How/why did you get into web design/development?

WS: I got curious when I was studying pre-press print production. Dreamweaver 2 had just come out, which means I learned how to put images in tables. Needless to say, it wasn't a good start, but it planted a seed in my mind that web development should be something to come back to. I flirted with it on an off over the years and then stumbled across Zeldman's Designing With Web Standards which opened my eyes in a big way. After that, I was hooked.

MQ: What would you like to see happen with ExpressionEngine or EllisLab in the future?

WS: If there's one thing I'd like to see changed in ExpressionEngine, it's the Pages module. I've used commercial solutions that attempt to improve the functionality of the module but I'd really like to see EllisLab bake something better in.