Ryan McCue

Hi! 👋 I’m Ryan, a web developer frying to a crisp living in sunny Brisbane, Australia. That’s my goofy face over on the right.

I’m a WordPress guest committer, and co-lead developer on the REST API project. I started the project a few years ago, and have been leading it ever since with my partner-in-crime Rachel Baker.

I’m also the lead developer on a few other projects, including Requests, a HTTP client for PHP 5.2+ with a focus on compatibility; and SimplePie, the feed parser used by WordPress and other projects.

There’s also a lot more stuff I do. Read about some of that below.

Across the Web

Follow me on Twitter, see what I'm listening to at Last.fm, or check out my latest work on GitHub.

If you're interested in a talk I've given recently, check out Speaker Deck for the slides, or one of the recordings on WP.tv.

Latest from GitHub

Most code I work on is available on GitHub. Here's a few of my latest changes.

  • WordPress/packages Commented on pull request #112: > perhaps try doing an XHR `HEAD` request to the…
  • wojtekmaj/react-calendar Closed #62: Add option to disable prev2/next2 labels
  • outline/rich-markdown-editor Commented on #1: No worries; I had just wanted to try it without…
  • humanmade/hm-pattern-library Closed #155: Change current blockquote style to pull-quote class, and add proper…
  • humanmade/hm-pattern-library Closed #154: Use relative units for font-size, line-height, margin, etc
  • outline/rich-markdown-editor Closed #1: "Maximum update depth exceeded" in Toolbar__Menu
  • outline/rich-markdown-editor WatchEvent
  • humanmade/coding-standards Commented on #55: Looks like these should actually already be excluded: https://github.com/WordPress-Coding-Standards/WordPress-Coding-Standards/pull/960 🤔
  • humanmade/coding-standards Closed #55: Exclude page template names from dash naming rules

Latest Articles

I write articles sometimes, often on projects I’m working on. Here’s the latest stuff I’ve published.

  • State of the REST API 2017 As we approach the State of the Word 2017 at WordCamp US, I think this is a good time to look back on the state of the REST API project and core focus over the last year. 2017 has been an interesting year for the REST API with highs and lows, and periods of intense […]
  • Requests for PHP: Version 1.7 Requests 1.7 is now available with a tonne of changes. Here’s some of the highlights: Add support for HHVM and PHP 7: Requests is now tested against both HHVM and PHP 7, and they are supported as first-party platforms. Transfer & connect timeouts, in seconds & milliseconds Rework cookie handling to be more thorough: Cookies […]
  • Patch WordPress via GitHub A few days ago, I started tweeting about the Stack Overflow Developer Survey, where 74% of developers surveyed said they dread working with WordPress. I received a tonne of replies that I’m still working through, and I’ll post about that soon. One reply that did come up a few times was contributing via GitHub. Matt […]
  • The (Complex) State of Meta in the WordPress REST API One of the other discussion points in our recent API meeting was the state of meta in the REST API. We recently made the somewhat-controversial decision to remove generic meta handling from the API. As we didn’t have time to get into the specifics in the meeting, I wanted to expand on exactly what we’re […]
  • Progressive Enhancement with the WordPress REST API In a REST API discussion today, we discussed the future of the REST API. Something I touched upon briefly in that meeting is the concept of progressive enhancement with the REST API. Since this topic hasn’t been brought up much previously, I want to elaborate on how progressive enhancement works. Progressive enhancement is our key […]

Featured Projects

I work on a lot of projects, so here’s a non-exhaustive list of my favourites.

  • Requests
    A HTTP client library built for usability and compatibility.
  • Falcon
    GitHub-style notifications (with reply-by-email) for your WordPress site.
  • Cavalcade
    Drop-in replacement for wp-cron. Scales horizontally for multi-server setups.
  • Gaussholder
    High-quality placeholder images using miniscule amounts of data.
  • Mercator
    Completely-rewritten domain mapping for the 21st Century.

Contact Me

Drop me an email at if you want to get in touch.

I'm terrible at replying, but I'll definitely read it. Please don't send support requests; those are better off filed as an issue on the relevant issue tracker.

Let’s Work Together

In all of my spare time, I'm the Director of Engineering at Human Made. We work on sites for clients like News Corp UK, npm, and Greenpeace. Get in touch with our lovely Director of New Business, Ant; you won't regret it.

Did I mention we're hiring? We're always looking for awesome people.