Are you really a developer if you use WordPress?

I definitely think the answer is yes. AS LONG AS… you are creating themes and working with php.

For the last week and a half I have been working my way through a udemy course covering custom theme building on WordPress and this what I found out.

1. Make sure you download the right stuff! Wondering why VScode was giving me errors and spending hours researching only to suddenly realise I forgot to download php 😐.

2. It was easier than I thought to transfer over a vanilla html, css and javascript website to WordPress. Its all about where I place code and how reusable I want pages to be.

3. Php is very similar to javascript and WordPress comes with handy little functions that means I can do something all over a site with one line of code.

4. If my code doesn’t work there’s a good chance I’ve incorrectly named your file…. (it took me over 4 hours to realise its supposed to be functions.php not function.php)

5. I need more note books. I take a lot of detailed notes when learning so that If I completely forget everything I’ve got something to go back to. To count I completed 3 books whilst at nology… im already 3/4 way through a notebook now and I haven’t even got half way through my udemy course. Thank god for Amazon Prime, right?

I started this for someone who was willing to give me a chance to take on something I had never done before. To let play around with it and show her what I had. She gave me a website design she wanted me to take inspiration from and let me go off and come back to her in a few days.

I presented my work to her and she told me that she was changing how she was going to make her website and was actually going to use shopify. I took a few days to research it and see if I could learn it but unfortunately she had a very tight deadline. There was no way I was going to be able to produce a custom design that was presentable by her deadline. The design I just created for her was extremely basic. I explained this to her, thanked her for the opportunity. I didn’t want her to rely on me especially if I wasn’t sure I was able to do it. She thanked me for my efforts and wished me luck for the future and we left it there.

Her business idea was amazing and I’m excited to see what she the finished product will look like!

Even though I decided it was best to turn the role down, I was thankful that someone actually gave me a chance! I’m enjoying my udemy course at the minute and hopefully by the end of next week I’ll have something worth showing off. Or at a minimum I’ll have some great notes for anytime I decide I want to build something custom on WordPress. Better get out that new notebook.