Are WordPress developers “real” developers?
Did you know that more than 455 million websites are built on WordPress?
With WordPress and a little effort, anyone can build a website today, but does that make them a developer?
WordPress (hereinafter referred to as WP) has been the most popular CMS and website development environment on the web for years. Ease of use and free tools have made WP popular even among users with no formal education and no programming knowledge and skills. Does that make them developers, and can WP developers be considered "real" developers given this? The answer is twofold, and below we will try to explain why.
Users and Developers - What's the Difference?
First of all, we need to understand the difference between configuring tools and programming functionality in a WP environment.
The majority of WP sites do not have complex functionalities (e.g. a blog), and for the development of such products, WP offers a handful of paid or free themes and plugins. This is exactly the essence of WP - an accessible and free platform that allows countless modifications.
For example, if someone wants to set up and launch their website, they don't need a developer. A huge number of freelancers create websites for their clients in this way. Today's market is flooded with advanced WP users who know how to add themes and plugins, modify or copy a piece of code, know how to modify CSS, HTML or add a snippet of PHP code. Does that mean they are developers?
Although with their knowledge and technical skills they can build great, fast and functional websites - their knowledge is still from the perspective of WP users. It cannot be implemented in other programming languages or environments.
Adding and combining different WP plugins from the very beginning of website development often results in a product with poor performance that is difficult to maintain and requires maintenance and repair, which requires more time and money.
Unlike advanced users, a WP developer is expected to be able to design and write code, and test and debug the software they develop.
Therefore, if you mainly deal with WP in your professional career, it is not impossible that you will receive questions of this type:
Do you know how to program?
Are you doing it in a way that reflects good practice and modern standards?
Software development itself implies the implementation and solving of various technical requirements and problems. You achieve success in this by knowing a lot of different tools and having experience in using them - WP is just one of them. If you know how to solve and implement complex client requests, using different paradigms in programming, it won't matter if your previous experience is based only on working in WP.
Many WP sites are sophisticated and require good programming skills. Although WP is often criticized for outdated procedural paradigms and coding styles, it is possible to program and use modern OOP programming styles, various types of software testing, popular PHP and JavaScript packages, etc.
Experienced WP developers have advanced knowledge of PHP and JavaScript/ReactJS, AJAX, JSON, MySQL, REST API, etc. and they could work in many other environments outside of WP, but specialize in WP or work for a company where WP is required for the business model.
How Better Collective works in WordPress
We have more than 2,000 websites in our portfolio, most of which are based on the WP platform - so we can say that we have a lot of experience in creating websites in WP. In addition to websites, our portfolio also includes a large number of REST API services so that all websites have different functionalities and dynamic data.
In order for all these services to efficiently serve data to WP websites, our developers have developed a large number of WP plugins that continuously communicate with APIs. Why is that important?
Considering that a good part of the websites have a huge number of competitive visits, the most important thing for us is how the data from the APIs is synchronized and updated with the performance of the website, both for the end visitor and for strict Google SEO requirements. One of the purposes of WP plugins is that by developing different types of data caching, all the mentioned requirements are fulfilled.
In the case of WP users who edit content on websites, popular JavaScript libraries (e.g. ReactJS) are used for better UX and easier use of the options offered by plugins.
What makes a "real" WordPress developer?
To really use the full potential of WP, you have to be a developer outside of the WP ecosystem.
What it means?
This means that you can transform and use your knowledge in other programming languages or environments used in web development.
But, the developer must be pragmatic - you don't have to reinvent the wheel if WP already offers you reliable functionalities to implement a specific request.
In the end, WP is a good choice as long as those using it are good developers.
If you want to apply your knowledge of WP and test it in other web development environments - sign up and follow Better Collective's ads!
