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WordPress

Kenton Kotsiris
Kenton Kotsiris
6,130 Points
Posted by Kenton Kotsiris
Kenton Kotsiris
6,130 Points

Where to start? Wordpress Development or PHP development track?

I'm good with HTML/CSS and JS is a work in progress.

Goal: To build/modify Wordpress themes; Wordpress Developer for hire freelance or contract.

I can't decide between which two. Moreover, how much PHP is needed if you're just going to be sticking to Wordpress?

3 Answers

Craig Watson
Craig Watson
27,930 Points

Hi Kenton!

I hit this same wall a number of months ago now, and from my experience now nearly completing both WordPress tracks and a few courses not on those tracks I would strongly advise doing the PHP Basics Course first just to get you into the syntax and understanding the language.

From starting the tracks to now I have made a fully working custom theme and a plugin all based around the Bootstrap framework so you certainly learn a lot along the way!

If you need any help in the future be sure to tag me in the questions I'm always about to lend a hand!

Craig :)

Kenton Kotsiris
Kenton Kotsiris
6,130 Points
Kenton Kotsiris
Kenton Kotsiris
6,130 Points

Thanks, I'll start with the PHP basics course.

Jacob Bender
Jacob Bender
15,300 Points
Jacob Bender
Jacob Bender
15,300 Points

From what you describe, I would go with the WP Dev track. I have not started it myself, but I have some experience with WP and if you are mainly looking to do themes and build sites, I think learning how WP works will be more useful to you. If you want to do custom plugin dev and such, you will need PHP.

See:

http://blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/tutorials/how-to-build-a-custom-wordpress-theme-from-scratch and https://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Development

Also I HAVE started the PHP dev track, and while it is super informative, I am not sure how much of it you will be able to immediately apply to WP. These are just my thoughts though, others may advise differently.

Kevin Korte
Kevin Korte
28,149 Points
Kevin Korte
Kevin Korte
28,149 Points

My personal opinion having already traveled this path, would be to start with at least a good solid basics of php; which is exactly the opposite of what I did.

There is quite a bit of PHP involved when building a wordpress theme, especially when you're building the functionality of the site. You should have a strong understanding of variables, loops, and especially functions in php. The rest you can learn as you go along, and as you do the WP track you'll start to learn all of the WP specific ways. WP has an ecosystem they have built using PHP, which includes a ton of pre-built functions for you to use.