Site icon WP Smith

Beginner Developer Series: From Nothing to Developing

Travis Smith

Beginner Developer Series: From Nothing to Developing

As I have been involved over the last couple years in WordPress meetups, WordCamps, and blogging about WordPress, I have noticed that there is a definite need for beginner WordPress developers. This need spans from the extreme basic (I know how to turn on my computer) to the experienced PHP developer just needing to understand WordPress as a platform or framework for development. So in this series, I am going to span that gap from the very beginner to the beginner to intermediate WordPress developer. I may accidentally assume that the reader will understand and know some basic computer skills; however, it is my goal to talk about everything in a very elementary sense.

As a way of a roadmap and a high level scope, I will be talking about the following items:

  1. Setup on a Windows Computer
    1. Essential Programs & Tools
    2. Setting Up a Local Environment
  2. What's the Difference between WordPress.com v. WordPress.org?
  3. An Introduction to Hosting and DNS
    1. Introduction to WordPress Friendly Hosts
    2. Basic Review of Domain Purchasing & Setup
  4. Your Online Presence: Understanding Your Website with Social Media
    1. What Level of Social Media Integration Do You Need?
    2. Importance of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, & Google+
    3. Guidelines to follow while getting YouTube subscribers from a trusted company
    4. You Are a Small Business, So Do You Need to Blog?
  5. An Introduction to WordPress
    1. What Happens in WordPress
    2. Tour of the WordPress GUI
  6. An Introduction to WordPress Themes: What Are Themes?
    1. An Introduction to WordPress Themes Repository
    2. Surveying the Premium Themes Market
    3. What Are Child Themes & How Do You Make One?
    4. My Top WordPress Themes
  7. An Introduction to WordPress Plugins
    1. An Introduction to WordPress Plugins Repository
    2. Understanding the Place of Premium Plugins
    3. My Top WordPress Plugins
    4. Core Functionality Plugin and Multiple Mini-Plugins
    5. A Review of Hello Dolly
    6. Writing Your First Plugin
  8. Understanding Your Site's Content
  9. Your Site's SEO: A Basic Introduction to the Essentials
  10. An Introduction to WordPress as a Content Management System
    1. Understanding WordPress's Core Posts & Pages
    2. Tumblrizing WordPress: An Introduction to Post Formats
    3. A Basic Conceptual Review of Custom Post Types
  11. Scaling WordPress: Caching & Content Delivery Networks (CDN)
  12. The Extreme Importance of Securing Your Site

Of course, I am not limiting myself to this strictly and reserve the freedom to address any questions, comments, etc. in a full post. Also, as I progress through this outline, I may realize that I missed something, created a gap or something otherwise, to which I will address accordingly.