(Reading time: 2 – 3 minutes)
Have you been seduced by WordPress?
You thought you were just a writer at heart, but now you want more. You want to understand how things get done. How the “gears and wheels” of this amazing personal publishing platform called WordPress really work. You’re in luck, because…
…Wordpress is your “gateway drug” to programming!
Let’s take a closer look. Paraphrasing from Wikipedia’s Gateway Drug article, we’re told:
- The gateway substance in question somehow causes users to be more likely to try harder substances.
Check.
You’ve had your fill of HTML and CSS. It’s old hat. Boring. All the cool kids are into the hard stuff. PHP.
- The gateway substance in question primes the brain for addiction to other (often unrelated) substances, independent of being more likely to try those other substances.
You just thought HTML was enough. Then, you were sure you could draw the line at CSS.
But MySQL is tempting you, sorely.
- A rigid sequence of progression, starting with licit drugs followed by (increasingly dangerous) illicit ones, is often the case.
It’s the surest path. Start with the easy stuff, like a web page. Before you know it, you’re writing WordPress plugins!
- The gateway effect is pharmacological rather than socially constructed.
Programming is addictive. Everybody knows that.
- Use of gateway substances is necessary and/or sufficient for later use or addiction to harder drugs.
PHP is useless without HTML. And MySQL just begs to be wrapped in PHP.
- Or, some combination of the above is asserted.
First hit’s free…
See?
WordPress is your perfect gateway to learn programming.
Easy to learn programming with WordPress
With just a little care (make backups!), you can ramp your skills up by:
- Tweaking themes with CSS
- Adding custom page template (super easy)
- Create custom fields
- Develop plugins.
Part of the beauty is that you also learn programming in today’s mixed programming language application environments. The days of limiting your development to one language such as C or C++ or Java are long gone.
What’s your plan? Are you going take advantage of this rich opportunity? If so, how? Leave a comment and a link, show us what you’re up to.
Would you like more? Send me a letter...
{ 15 comments }
I learned some Java in college to write control software for mechanical devices, which helped me understand PHP a bit when I started digging into it. It is addicting though. I just had to whip out a couple custom page templates last weekend. At this point that is like building with legos, just snap the blocks together.
I have to remind myself that coding is just a means to an end (communication), not the end unto itself. It is satisfying.
Deacon´s last blog ..Weekend Printing Results
I’m the situation where I would like to do a lot more coding. Coding and writing taps the same part of my brain, but in different contexts. It’s tough to spend time doing both. Invariably, I have to choose one or the other.
Dr Wordpress!´s last blog ..Blog World Recap: How to Attract a Large and Loyal Audience
Yeah — WordPress surely seduce regarding to programming. I my self is seduced to do some programming. I just want to do some change and i found i already learn some css and php programming.
Dana @ Online Knowledge´s last blog ..Create Contact Form for WordPress Blog
Leave a note for us when you have something really cool to show off!
Dr Wordpress!´s last blog ..WordPress Screencast – Practical WordPress Tip #1 Grabbing links fast
CSS tweaking is probably a thing that all people that use wordpress need to do. It has helped me to better my CSS skills alot. Nice to notice that these things happen pretty suddenly, I hadn’t even thought that I was learning all the time. I was just tweaking and having fun.
Blog Handbook´s last blog ..Retaining Twitter Followers – How to Get Twitter Followers to Stick –
CSS is by far my weakest skill. I just loathe it… but I do it anyway.
Frankly, there is no good layout language for the web. HTML/CSS sucks, but it’s all we have.
Dr Wordpress!´s last blog ..7 Essential Tools for Building Your Marketing Empire
I actually learned PHP a couple of years ago when my boss diversified from programming stand-alone software into websites and online support. I was able to output his first pet website project purely on PHP and MySQL. Then as I explored further, I discovered Wordpress. Then, I became PHP-lazy. With Wordpress, I didn’t have to code a lot. All I really need to do is edit the CSS file and just tweak a few lines in the theme in order to come up with the look I like. Now, I’m in the mood to learn something new again. I am slowly getting into actually making my own theme from scratch. I am also very interested to learn how to create plugins because I have a lot of ideas in this area.
James Moralde´s last blog ..Help Save MySQL
James, I have a suite of starter plugins that will chop a week or two off of your learning curve. Check them out here:
http://website-in-a-weekend.net/plugins/
Dr Wordpress!´s last blog ..Blog World Recap: How to Attract a Large and Loyal Audience
Wow, Dr. Wordpress! I’m heading over to your plugins links. Thank you!
James Moralde´s last blog ..Track Cell Phone
I found good resources of c#. Check this out
csharptalk.com
Rahul´s last blog ..How to Create a Lists in HTML
wordpress is harder than real code half the time when you want to edit something
mugs´s last blog ..Wake Up With Me
I’d love a guest post backing up your claim.
Dr Wordpress!´s last blog ..Blog World Recap: How to Attract a Large and Loyal Audience
I second that. Because, the way I see it, it’s the other way around.
James Moralde´s last blog ..Bugs Bunny Poster
I think that WordPress is as great as the user wants it to be. I’ve not dug into programming myself but do know much HTML and CSS. Still experimenting with the old style of things and really giving thought to going completely WordPress soon.
Eric, there is a bit of hurdle at the beginning. I don’t think you will regret it once you take the plunge.
Dr Wordpress!´s last blog ..7 Tips for Producing Snackable, Factual Content
Comments on this entry are closed.
{ 1 trackback }