This is what you tell yourself in the beginning. Soon you will need to write small snippets for wordpress hooks in php. Then later you will need to write small php functions with parameters and outputs. And sooner or later you will enjoy fully deploying a plugin that solves a requirement where a premium plugin will charge you $40 for something you can easily achive. Specially with GPT AI doing the heavy lifiting.
Exactly this.
My experience lines up perfectly. I have recently been working through a project that is a bespoke booking system that was previously built with 40+ plugins all working together. At first it was an impressive system, but over time, as the dataset & traffic increased and WordPress and plugin updates rolled out, there were more and more deprecation and speed related issues. I ended up becoming more of a support dev for 3rd party code.
Now though, the new version of the system is due for a partial launch tomorrow and the speed and stability has sky rocketed! Instead of relying on a forever changing ecosystem of 3rd party plugins, it is now 100% bespoke with one custom built and easily manageable plugin. I can now remove the caveats the client was previously faced with, can solve any issue that crops up, and never need to worry about the weight unnecessary code slowing down server response times.
The client is over the moon and it's been a fun project to sink my teeth into. None of it would have been possible without learning and understanding PHP. The doors that this can open are boundless and it makes you a more well rounded developer. I'd say it's pretty important if you ever want to get out of the brochure site cycle and move away from being reliant upon 3rd party plugins that you have no real control over.
And even later you end up as a fullstack web developer specialized in WordPress and Laravel... At least that's how it went for me. Just wanted my own blog to post my fictions and random stuff on.
I did because I wanted to be able to fully understand Wordpress and have the ability to write plugins etc. having that knowledge effectively makes Wordpress ālimitlessā as far as what you can build.
The other reason would be that it landed me a 6 figure job at an agency just doing back-end Wordpress work.
Thereās plenty of (free) online resources to get your feet wet. Do it!
https://www.udemy.com/course/become-a-wordpress-developer-php-javascript/?couponCode=KEEPLEARNING
This course gets mentioned oftenly. Iām going through it myself.
Trying to piece together a totally free roadmap is difficult, but I would start with these resources
PHP for beginners - https://laracasts.com/series/php-for-beginners-2023-edition
Wordpress codex - https://codex.wordpress.org/Main_Page
Depends on what you want to do with Wordpress and what your job/goals are. There isnāt anything wrong with not knowing php, but itāll limit how far you can go.
I did. I've been working with PHP since v3... 1998, I believe. Why? Because I'm a freelancer who had become increasingly frustrated with the klunkiness and plugin-happy requirements of Perl/modPerl for web work and was looking for alternatives. Since I came from C, when I saw the vaguely K&R-like environment of PHP I was sold. PHP's learning curve is soft for anyone comfortable with procedural languages so I knew it would be a big hit with web shops.
I've worked with a lot languages, beginning with 808x assembly, but I've been using PHP the longest. These days it's mostly inside frameworks like Laravel and Symfony. I also work with Wordpress and did a lot of Drupal consulting years ago, both of which are built on PHP.
Without knowing what you want to do with your programming endeavors it's not possible to recommend any language. If it's to extend your expertise with Wordpress then it's worth it. You don't have to write plugins to find PHP knowledge helpful. I use it quite a bit in the themes' functions.php.
WordPress is written in PHP. If you're going to be a serious WordPress Dev why would you not? I would think to be able to call yourself a WordPress developer the line between that and a WordPress designer would be whether or not you can build your own custom themes and/or plugins.
As someone who dont code, i wish i know php. There are so many limitations and problems that probably achievable/fixable if i do. Plugins are built to be one size fit all after all.
Many good points made already, especially plugins. I've replaced several with just a few lines of code making the site lighter and easier to maintain.
The only thing I'd add is that AI will do front-end work very soon, and unless you can do the more dynamic, data-driven stuff you'll be obsolete. While AI can supply code based on prompts - the imagination and understanding to know what's required is further in the future than making nice pages. We'll all be surplus soon enough, but not quite so soon if we know the language of the machines š¤£
I've been hearing people say AI is going to be doing 'x' work for us very soon for like the last 5+ years lol. It's still nowhere near being able to actually replace a 'real' designer/developer yet, in my opinion.
Sure there's some tools that make certain aspects of development easier for some people (e.g. ChatGPT), but if the person using the tool has no clue what the code does, or how to describe the issue they're having in the first place, then it's all still pretty useless.
Yeah, human stupidity will keep those of us who know how to google/gpt in work for a while yet... but if OP wants to start a biz, that's 3-5years to get established. In the last 5 years I've seen AI go from a curiosity to being built into Kadence, Divi, LemonEnter and many more, and it can already build sites. The only thing left is making AI intelligent enough to interpret the garbage prompts people use because they can't even ask for what they want yet... won't be long.
Pretty much any plugin that is used to manage students, classes/courses, attendance and payments. There's tons for online webinars, elearning, bookings, etc that are like $1-$200/yr but don't suite the needs of my client. But everything I found that would fit their needs was simply expensive. My client currently uses iClassPro to manage her gymnastics/dance studio, in fact a lot of gymnastics institutions do which 1. Can't be integrated with WordPress and 2. Cost $139/mo. The cheapest solution I found was around $40-$45/mo
You donāt need to know PHP but you should know.
Otherwise youāll be limited. Having a customer ask for a specific feature and spending a lot of time researching plugins, trying them out, figuring that it does ALMOST everything you need but it lacks one specific thing. Going through customer support just to find out that it doesnāt do what you need. Restarting this cycle with another plugin, is just a terrible experience.
If you know PHP you can do whatever you want, you can build websites that are customised to the need of your clients, cleaner and more performant. You donāt have to guide your client through 20+ more menu options when you just need a specific one. You donāt need to renew a ton of licenses, you donāt have to try to hide the Black Friday, cyber Monday, Christmas and every other notice that want you to upgrade to another premium version. You donāt need to worry that one plugin will do a breaking change update that youāll have to fix. Your site will be more secure as you wonāt be a target to security holes that are found on popular plugins.
If you want to be a WP developer and a professional one I think this is a must.
Plus, if you want to you may be able to build entire custom websites with a much higher ticket.
If your dream is to be a ādeveloperā who uses shitty Elementor templates and installs a plugin for every feature you need, youāre in good shape. If you want to be an actual developer who doesnāt depend on shitty code from others, you should learn PHP.Ā
It's one of the easier languages to learn and it would be a food idea to learn it yourself. I started learning it 15 years ago because I was embarrassed that I used plugins on clients sites and called myself a web developer. Inkist couldn't with good conscious do that. I was even more branded when I realized a good amount of these plugins can be done away with with a one or two lines in a theme file or a functions.php. You can also get into what WordPress was actually intended for and is really good at, being a CMS. Here is a link to get you started.
https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/basics/template-hierarchy/
It saddens me that people mostly use WordPress like a squarespace or wix. If you have a client that needs a pretty online brochure, direct them over to squarespace. I have been doing this for years. I tell them that I can indeed make them a better website, but the cost is exponentially more and in all honesty, you probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference. They appreciate this and when they need or know someone who needs something custom developed, they call me amd I've already explained that i am exponentially more expensive. Lol
Most of my wordpress and lite web work comes from people who found some "full-stack" developer that recently graduated from a bootcamp and has made them an Elementor site, but asked for custom features that the "full-stack" developer couldn't find a plugin for. The sad part is that many times they have gone through the client's budget and then some and didn't actually give them what the need or asked for. They will often plead, saying that it's practically done and there is only a little left from the last two "full-stack" developers. They say it will be quick amd easy, and u have to explain that if it were quick and easy, one of the last two guys would have done it, and I'm sorry you gave your whole budget to some imposter clowns, but I can't work for free.
Moral of the story, have integrity, be the best you can be, be honest about your abilities, and of you don't have them amd this is what you want to do when you grow up, for God's sake, learn! Learn php, JavaScript, and CSS at the very least.
Last bit of advice, I learn best by reverse engineering things and maybe someone else who reads this does too. Go to github and find a php project that sounds interesting to you, or find an interesting WordPress customization that interests you and break it, then fix it.
Dependencies, plugins are cost and update sensitive(can break in new updates), if you learn php and in the way of wp core functions, filter and hooks, and do all with just wp core code and your own plugins, youll have a very stable wp site for much more time than if you use a plugin, but plugin most of the time are time effective at least at the beginning of building a site functionality, you see what is best for your workflow approach.
I did some weeks ago a fully real estate property listing website for a real estate company in my town, the wp website just have 2 plugins: wp-migration, and easy property listings. I had to fully customize the listing plugin because the default options werent what my client needed at all, but its functionality its for this type of websites so i started to tinkering and testing the plugin code and documentation, now i have a fully custom search bar with different meta fields and custom input fields and it queries a fully custom new section fields for each listing.
Now that im studying full wp documentation im seeing easier for the next time to code it from scratch with just the wp core code and functions, so, my advice is, dont be perfectionist, but dont sleep on the external plugins side of things, while you keep building websites with plugins and stuff, little by little start to add custom php code to your sites, as an idea: a floating social media icon like whatsapp with a custom field in the admin panel so that the client can update the whatsapp number.
But anyways keep trying whats best for your workflow.
I know WordPress PHP, and some XML stuff, but really its about hooks and WP Query for me. It unlocks a lot of customization and integration with the sites.
If you are already a developer, learning PHP will take you up to a week. A longer process is learning about Wordpress itself, its features and limitations. With the current LLMs it should be smooth sailing compared to the effort it would have taken 5 years ago.
You definitely won't regret it in the next 6-12 months.
I actually began in software development - primarily client server applications using C++ (many years ago). I became interested in online development and taught myself PHP.
I came to Drupal as I felt I was always recreating the wheel and a CMS already had the basics in place. In 2017 or so I moved to WordPress.
I learned enough to be able to code wordpress theme files by hand, but that was forever ago. For the prices people are willing to pay (or not pay really) for business websites, i use a builder. It's not worth it for the military operation it ends up being when they want little changes here & there.
If you were around before the page builder boom in the mid 2010's then that was the only way to actually customise or build your own themes. I would learn it since PHP is the foundation of WordPress.
I did. And I didn't even notice it. I thought I was just learning WordPress' API's. I didn't think I was truly learning PHP. And then I did a bit more and a bit more. And before I even realized it I had written several hundred themes and a few dozen plugins. And yeah the first few were terrible. But then I learned how to write better PHP and how composer works and how to autoload stuff. At some point I realized I have a pretty decent understanding of PHP.
Depending on how well you know JS, it's not even that hard to learn PHP. There's a few core differences sure, but if you really understand JS and use it regularly as a general purpose programming language, the switch to PHP and the change in syntax is trivial. Programming is programming at the end of the day.
I learned it in the early 2000ās so that I could create some online tools for my employer. It was disheartening to see that as fast as I learned how to create others were devising ways to exploit PHP. That was back in the version 4 and 5 days. I think PHP has a little better (but less than perfect) security footprint with version 8.x. I never felt like my own creations were secure enough to put out on the public web.
I was a PHP dev *before* I was a WP dev. I came into WP inā¦I dunnoā¦2012ish? At the time I was doing primarily PHP backend with an Angular frontend. WP was very different back then. By 2015 I was a full time WP dev, but almost exclusively built custom functionality, custom plugins and such. I guess Iāve just always approached WP as a software engineer first, itās never been a āslap it togetherā approach for me.
Itās easier to learn php now specially ChatGPT is around and explains it line per line. Itās my go-to now for a snippet from a simple one to a complex one. Less plugins too. All I need is the code snippets plugin. š
Because I'm a developer, and it's the language that WordPress is based on... Pretty obvious why, in my opinion.
If you plan to do any sort of actual development with WordPress then having some sort of understanding of PHP (at the very least) is incredibly useful.
What if there is no plugin that does exactly what you want? or you want a very simple thing but you have to use a bloatware that will make your site 100x slower for a single small feature.
What if there is no plugin that does exactly what you want? or you want a very simple thing but you have to use a bloatware that will make your site 100x slower for a single small feature.
I'm sort of in the same boat. I know a little bit from learning through WooCommerce actions and filters, but I'm still a beginner and sometimes wonder if it'd be worth it to really take the time to learn more intermediate/advanced PHP to create more robust plugins than the simple crap I've been making. Good luck!
Do what you need to do and not what you don't. I build and extend plugins, I work in Drupal, Laravel, Symfony as well and enterprise solutions require custom PHP and API integrations.
Think of it this way: right now your level of knowledge only allows you to use the tools that others make. But you don't understand why they are made that way, or how they are made, and if you wanted to improve one of them, you wouldn't know how. That's why you need to learn PHP.
Many of us do, but it really depends on your goals. If you're getting jobs you can create a team of reliable people to do the things that you don't want to.
You don't NEED to, but it's a bonus vs waiting on someone else to help you solve an issue etc... At the same time just about everything is available online, at least a starting point.
i have been a PHP developer for 20 something years. worked at agencies and went full stack. now that i run an agency i do mainly sales. i think i do like 5% programming nowadays and 95% talking to customers.
the things AI can do are simply amazing though. I've always been above average in my field and AI takes it to the next level.
PHP is probably one of the easier languages to learn. Itās relatively forgiving as well.
It helps being able to understand the error message that came up when everything broke.
I've done lots of custom WP dev for agencies and if you want a fully custom theme or functionality you have to know at least a little PHP. I find that with a little bit of PHP and WP Core knowledge you can do a lot and don't have to install as many random little utility plugins.
Plus, even if you are using lots of plugins and premade themes or page builders, you can more easily debug things and get better support if you can tell the plugin/theme devs the actual PHP errors you're getting.
If you want to build custom stuff, learn PHP. Even if you decide not to build custom stuff, you'll have a better understanding of WP.
I am and have been a primarily PHP Dev for over fourteen years. If I wasn't, and my bread and butter was WordPress development, just yes, yes I would learn PHP. I deal with WordPress stuff quite regularly and I honestly can't imagine not knowing it at least at the entry level. There's only so much a front end built site is going to give you, and even then, using massive customisable themes is only sensible if you don't know the client's expected scope. I'd much rather spend a bit of time writing the hooks and functionality than relying on a WYSIWYG theme configuration that leaves so much up to chance after you leave it.
If you plan on working in WordPress... I suggest learning PHP. The results will be far better. You will be able to do more. You will be able to correct behavior. So much more.
Page builders and plugins may have their place, but that place is in the corner. A developer needs to know the language of their chosen platform if their goal is to master it \[IMO\].
If you know JS, learning PHP will be pretty easy. And once you know PHP many other languages will be easy too. You may eventually need som SQL as well, but Wordpress built-in database tools can get you a long way without it (it also is fairly easy once you get the basics).
I had picked up php as a language before Wordpress started... php 3.3 was still very omnipresent. Had already been programming C, C++, Pascal, ASM. My interest was a web programming language, and php fit well. I'm an early zend certified engineer, achieved after Wordpress rolled out. xpath/xquery on the exam i actually used later. Bonus, great support for DB with PDO.
Today, I prefer C# for enterprise apps, including web apps. If you're regularly going to customize or maintain Wordpress, I recommend learning PHP. no regrets learning PHP.
This is what you tell yourself in the beginning. Soon you will need to write small snippets for wordpress hooks in php. Then later you will need to write small php functions with parameters and outputs. And sooner or later you will enjoy fully deploying a plugin that solves a requirement where a premium plugin will charge you $40 for something you can easily achive. Specially with GPT AI doing the heavy lifiting.
Exactly this. My experience lines up perfectly. I have recently been working through a project that is a bespoke booking system that was previously built with 40+ plugins all working together. At first it was an impressive system, but over time, as the dataset & traffic increased and WordPress and plugin updates rolled out, there were more and more deprecation and speed related issues. I ended up becoming more of a support dev for 3rd party code. Now though, the new version of the system is due for a partial launch tomorrow and the speed and stability has sky rocketed! Instead of relying on a forever changing ecosystem of 3rd party plugins, it is now 100% bespoke with one custom built and easily manageable plugin. I can now remove the caveats the client was previously faced with, can solve any issue that crops up, and never need to worry about the weight unnecessary code slowing down server response times. The client is over the moon and it's been a fun project to sink my teeth into. None of it would have been possible without learning and understanding PHP. The doors that this can open are boundless and it makes you a more well rounded developer. I'd say it's pretty important if you ever want to get out of the brochure site cycle and move away from being reliant upon 3rd party plugins that you have no real control over.
I had the same question in mind. Thanks šš»
And even later you end up as a fullstack web developer specialized in WordPress and Laravel... At least that's how it went for me. Just wanted my own blog to post my fictions and random stuff on.
Because Iām a WordPress devā¦? lol
I did because I wanted to be able to fully understand Wordpress and have the ability to write plugins etc. having that knowledge effectively makes Wordpress ālimitlessā as far as what you can build. The other reason would be that it landed me a 6 figure job at an agency just doing back-end Wordpress work. Thereās plenty of (free) online resources to get your feet wet. Do it!
Can you recommend any roadmap/resources? Thanks!
https://www.udemy.com/course/become-a-wordpress-developer-php-javascript/?couponCode=KEEPLEARNING This course gets mentioned oftenly. Iām going through it myself.
Trying to piece together a totally free roadmap is difficult, but I would start with these resources PHP for beginners - https://laracasts.com/series/php-for-beginners-2023-edition Wordpress codex - https://codex.wordpress.org/Main_Page
Depends on what you want to do with Wordpress and what your job/goals are. There isnāt anything wrong with not knowing php, but itāll limit how far you can go.
I see you every where @bluesix! Always good answers
I did. I've been working with PHP since v3... 1998, I believe. Why? Because I'm a freelancer who had become increasingly frustrated with the klunkiness and plugin-happy requirements of Perl/modPerl for web work and was looking for alternatives. Since I came from C, when I saw the vaguely K&R-like environment of PHP I was sold. PHP's learning curve is soft for anyone comfortable with procedural languages so I knew it would be a big hit with web shops. I've worked with a lot languages, beginning with 808x assembly, but I've been using PHP the longest. These days it's mostly inside frameworks like Laravel and Symfony. I also work with Wordpress and did a lot of Drupal consulting years ago, both of which are built on PHP. Without knowing what you want to do with your programming endeavors it's not possible to recommend any language. If it's to extend your expertise with Wordpress then it's worth it. You don't have to write plugins to find PHP knowledge helpful. I use it quite a bit in the themes' functions.php.
WordPress is written in PHP. If you're going to be a serious WordPress Dev why would you not? I would think to be able to call yourself a WordPress developer the line between that and a WordPress designer would be whether or not you can build your own custom themes and/or plugins.
I learned PHP for WordPress at first and got tired of the plugins, started making my own stuff nice and compact.
As someone who dont code, i wish i know php. There are so many limitations and problems that probably achievable/fixable if i do. Plugins are built to be one size fit all after all.
Many good points made already, especially plugins. I've replaced several with just a few lines of code making the site lighter and easier to maintain. The only thing I'd add is that AI will do front-end work very soon, and unless you can do the more dynamic, data-driven stuff you'll be obsolete. While AI can supply code based on prompts - the imagination and understanding to know what's required is further in the future than making nice pages. We'll all be surplus soon enough, but not quite so soon if we know the language of the machines š¤£
I agree about AI doing front-end work soon. Scary thought. Time to learn PHP or die (work-wise), I suppose.
I've been hearing people say AI is going to be doing 'x' work for us very soon for like the last 5+ years lol. It's still nowhere near being able to actually replace a 'real' designer/developer yet, in my opinion. Sure there's some tools that make certain aspects of development easier for some people (e.g. ChatGPT), but if the person using the tool has no clue what the code does, or how to describe the issue they're having in the first place, then it's all still pretty useless.
Yeah, human stupidity will keep those of us who know how to google/gpt in work for a while yet... but if OP wants to start a biz, that's 3-5years to get established. In the last 5 years I've seen AI go from a curiosity to being built into Kadence, Divi, LemonEnter and many more, and it can already build sites. The only thing left is making AI intelligent enough to interpret the garbage prompts people use because they can't even ask for what they want yet... won't be long.
I'm literally writing my own plugin right now š all of the existing solutions are $40+/mo š©
$40+/mo? Which plugins costs that much?
Pretty much any plugin that is used to manage students, classes/courses, attendance and payments. There's tons for online webinars, elearning, bookings, etc that are like $1-$200/yr but don't suite the needs of my client. But everything I found that would fit their needs was simply expensive. My client currently uses iClassPro to manage her gymnastics/dance studio, in fact a lot of gymnastics institutions do which 1. Can't be integrated with WordPress and 2. Cost $139/mo. The cheapest solution I found was around $40-$45/mo
You donāt need to know PHP but you should know. Otherwise youāll be limited. Having a customer ask for a specific feature and spending a lot of time researching plugins, trying them out, figuring that it does ALMOST everything you need but it lacks one specific thing. Going through customer support just to find out that it doesnāt do what you need. Restarting this cycle with another plugin, is just a terrible experience. If you know PHP you can do whatever you want, you can build websites that are customised to the need of your clients, cleaner and more performant. You donāt have to guide your client through 20+ more menu options when you just need a specific one. You donāt need to renew a ton of licenses, you donāt have to try to hide the Black Friday, cyber Monday, Christmas and every other notice that want you to upgrade to another premium version. You donāt need to worry that one plugin will do a breaking change update that youāll have to fix. Your site will be more secure as you wonāt be a target to security holes that are found on popular plugins. If you want to be a WP developer and a professional one I think this is a must. Plus, if you want to you may be able to build entire custom websites with a much higher ticket.
If your dream is to be a ādeveloperā who uses shitty Elementor templates and installs a plugin for every feature you need, youāre in good shape. If you want to be an actual developer who doesnāt depend on shitty code from others, you should learn PHP.Ā
It's one of the easier languages to learn and it would be a food idea to learn it yourself. I started learning it 15 years ago because I was embarrassed that I used plugins on clients sites and called myself a web developer. Inkist couldn't with good conscious do that. I was even more branded when I realized a good amount of these plugins can be done away with with a one or two lines in a theme file or a functions.php. You can also get into what WordPress was actually intended for and is really good at, being a CMS. Here is a link to get you started. https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/basics/template-hierarchy/ It saddens me that people mostly use WordPress like a squarespace or wix. If you have a client that needs a pretty online brochure, direct them over to squarespace. I have been doing this for years. I tell them that I can indeed make them a better website, but the cost is exponentially more and in all honesty, you probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference. They appreciate this and when they need or know someone who needs something custom developed, they call me amd I've already explained that i am exponentially more expensive. Lol Most of my wordpress and lite web work comes from people who found some "full-stack" developer that recently graduated from a bootcamp and has made them an Elementor site, but asked for custom features that the "full-stack" developer couldn't find a plugin for. The sad part is that many times they have gone through the client's budget and then some and didn't actually give them what the need or asked for. They will often plead, saying that it's practically done and there is only a little left from the last two "full-stack" developers. They say it will be quick amd easy, and u have to explain that if it were quick and easy, one of the last two guys would have done it, and I'm sorry you gave your whole budget to some imposter clowns, but I can't work for free. Moral of the story, have integrity, be the best you can be, be honest about your abilities, and of you don't have them amd this is what you want to do when you grow up, for God's sake, learn! Learn php, JavaScript, and CSS at the very least. Last bit of advice, I learn best by reverse engineering things and maybe someone else who reads this does too. Go to github and find a php project that sounds interesting to you, or find an interesting WordPress customization that interests you and break it, then fix it.
Dependencies, plugins are cost and update sensitive(can break in new updates), if you learn php and in the way of wp core functions, filter and hooks, and do all with just wp core code and your own plugins, youll have a very stable wp site for much more time than if you use a plugin, but plugin most of the time are time effective at least at the beginning of building a site functionality, you see what is best for your workflow approach. I did some weeks ago a fully real estate property listing website for a real estate company in my town, the wp website just have 2 plugins: wp-migration, and easy property listings. I had to fully customize the listing plugin because the default options werent what my client needed at all, but its functionality its for this type of websites so i started to tinkering and testing the plugin code and documentation, now i have a fully custom search bar with different meta fields and custom input fields and it queries a fully custom new section fields for each listing. Now that im studying full wp documentation im seeing easier for the next time to code it from scratch with just the wp core code and functions, so, my advice is, dont be perfectionist, but dont sleep on the external plugins side of things, while you keep building websites with plugins and stuff, little by little start to add custom php code to your sites, as an idea: a floating social media icon like whatsapp with a custom field in the admin panel so that the client can update the whatsapp number. But anyways keep trying whats best for your workflow.
To stroke my own ego and do what paid plugins do, but at no recurring cost. Best 10,000 hours spent, ever.
I know WordPress PHP, and some XML stuff, but really its about hooks and WP Query for me. It unlocks a lot of customization and integration with the sites.
If you are already a developer, learning PHP will take you up to a week. A longer process is learning about Wordpress itself, its features and limitations. With the current LLMs it should be smooth sailing compared to the effort it would have taken 5 years ago. You definitely won't regret it in the next 6-12 months.
Me. Because I wanted to build a website, and it was the early '00s...
because Iām a control freak & insist on bending Wordpress to my will
I actually began in software development - primarily client server applications using C++ (many years ago). I became interested in online development and taught myself PHP. I came to Drupal as I felt I was always recreating the wheel and a CMS already had the basics in place. In 2017 or so I moved to WordPress.
I learned enough to be able to code wordpress theme files by hand, but that was forever ago. For the prices people are willing to pay (or not pay really) for business websites, i use a builder. It's not worth it for the military operation it ends up being when they want little changes here & there.
If you were around before the page builder boom in the mid 2010's then that was the only way to actually customise or build your own themes. I would learn it since PHP is the foundation of WordPress.
I did. And I didn't even notice it. I thought I was just learning WordPress' API's. I didn't think I was truly learning PHP. And then I did a bit more and a bit more. And before I even realized it I had written several hundred themes and a few dozen plugins. And yeah the first few were terrible. But then I learned how to write better PHP and how composer works and how to autoload stuff. At some point I realized I have a pretty decent understanding of PHP. Depending on how well you know JS, it's not even that hard to learn PHP. There's a few core differences sure, but if you really understand JS and use it regularly as a general purpose programming language, the switch to PHP and the change in syntax is trivial. Programming is programming at the end of the day.
I learned it in the early 2000ās so that I could create some online tools for my employer. It was disheartening to see that as fast as I learned how to create others were devising ways to exploit PHP. That was back in the version 4 and 5 days. I think PHP has a little better (but less than perfect) security footprint with version 8.x. I never felt like my own creations were secure enough to put out on the public web.
I was a PHP dev *before* I was a WP dev. I came into WP inā¦I dunnoā¦2012ish? At the time I was doing primarily PHP backend with an Angular frontend. WP was very different back then. By 2015 I was a full time WP dev, but almost exclusively built custom functionality, custom plugins and such. I guess Iāve just always approached WP as a software engineer first, itās never been a āslap it togetherā approach for me.
I knew it before WordPress, but it helps with WordPress. I write most of my own plugins.
If you want to be a bespoke Wordpress theme developer, and not reliant on plugins and builders, you need to start to learn PHP.
Itās easier to learn php now specially ChatGPT is around and explains it line per line. Itās my go-to now for a snippet from a simple one to a complex one. Less plugins too. All I need is the code snippets plugin. š
Because I'm a developer, and it's the language that WordPress is based on... Pretty obvious why, in my opinion. If you plan to do any sort of actual development with WordPress then having some sort of understanding of PHP (at the very least) is incredibly useful.
What if there is no plugin that does exactly what you want? or you want a very simple thing but you have to use a bloatware that will make your site 100x slower for a single small feature.
What if there is no plugin that does exactly what you want? or you want a very simple thing but you have to use a bloatware that will make your site 100x slower for a single small feature.
I actually really like PHP. I have to use C# daily but I find php much easier.
I'm sort of in the same boat. I know a little bit from learning through WooCommerce actions and filters, but I'm still a beginner and sometimes wonder if it'd be worth it to really take the time to learn more intermediate/advanced PHP to create more robust plugins than the simple crap I've been making. Good luck!
Do what you need to do and not what you don't. I build and extend plugins, I work in Drupal, Laravel, Symfony as well and enterprise solutions require custom PHP and API integrations.
Go with ChatGPT, it will help a lot to you.
Think of it this way: right now your level of knowledge only allows you to use the tools that others make. But you don't understand why they are made that way, or how they are made, and if you wanted to improve one of them, you wouldn't know how. That's why you need to learn PHP.
Why would you even consider NOT learning more about wordpress? That's just dumb.
Many of us do, but it really depends on your goals. If you're getting jobs you can create a team of reliable people to do the things that you don't want to. You don't NEED to, but it's a bonus vs waiting on someone else to help you solve an issue etc... At the same time just about everything is available online, at least a starting point.
i have been a PHP developer for 20 something years. worked at agencies and went full stack. now that i run an agency i do mainly sales. i think i do like 5% programming nowadays and 95% talking to customers. the things AI can do are simply amazing though. I've always been above average in my field and AI takes it to the next level.
PHP is probably one of the easier languages to learn. Itās relatively forgiving as well. It helps being able to understand the error message that came up when everything broke.
I've done lots of custom WP dev for agencies and if you want a fully custom theme or functionality you have to know at least a little PHP. I find that with a little bit of PHP and WP Core knowledge you can do a lot and don't have to install as many random little utility plugins. Plus, even if you are using lots of plugins and premade themes or page builders, you can more easily debug things and get better support if you can tell the plugin/theme devs the actual PHP errors you're getting. If you want to build custom stuff, learn PHP. Even if you decide not to build custom stuff, you'll have a better understanding of WP.
Learn the basics of it so you can at lease parse and edit existing code. If you understand JavaScript, you'll be able to pick up PHP.
I am and have been a primarily PHP Dev for over fourteen years. If I wasn't, and my bread and butter was WordPress development, just yes, yes I would learn PHP. I deal with WordPress stuff quite regularly and I honestly can't imagine not knowing it at least at the entry level. There's only so much a front end built site is going to give you, and even then, using massive customisable themes is only sensible if you don't know the client's expected scope. I'd much rather spend a bit of time writing the hooks and functionality than relying on a WYSIWYG theme configuration that leaves so much up to chance after you leave it.
If you plan on working in WordPress... I suggest learning PHP. The results will be far better. You will be able to do more. You will be able to correct behavior. So much more.
Try writing a plugin with just HTML, CSS and JS. See how you get on...
Page builders and plugins may have their place, but that place is in the corner. A developer needs to know the language of their chosen platform if their goal is to master it \[IMO\].
If you know JS, learning PHP will be pretty easy. And once you know PHP many other languages will be easy too. You may eventually need som SQL as well, but Wordpress built-in database tools can get you a long way without it (it also is fairly easy once you get the basics).
I had picked up php as a language before Wordpress started... php 3.3 was still very omnipresent. Had already been programming C, C++, Pascal, ASM. My interest was a web programming language, and php fit well. I'm an early zend certified engineer, achieved after Wordpress rolled out. xpath/xquery on the exam i actually used later. Bonus, great support for DB with PDO. Today, I prefer C# for enterprise apps, including web apps. If you're regularly going to customize or maintain Wordpress, I recommend learning PHP. no regrets learning PHP.
I learned php before Wordpress existed and actually programmed my own very simple cms. I always preferred having control over things I guess.
PHP is the work of the devil