The Foundation

WordPress Development: The Foundation

The first part of this series will cover the bare essentials needed to begin developing using WordPress, or any web design platform.

Commitment:

1. Be willing to fail
2. Be prepared to get back up after failing
3. Set aside a large amount if not all of your free time to devote to learning

One: This one is important if you’re going to make it. One thing wrong with society today is the fear of failure. Many people pass up or give up simply because they are afraid to fail. Think of things you consider innovative, or great. Now think about the person/people who created them. Do you think they would exist if the creators were afraid of failure? The answer will almost always be no. You won’t get it the first try, you will not succeed if you aren’t willing to fail a time or two.

Two: Another needed asset for developers is the ability to shrug off a failed attempt. The quicker you let it go, the quicker you can try again.

Three: Web development isn’t a casual hobby. It will demand a lot of your time. If you truly enjoy what your doing this one should come naturally. Once you start to learn you’ll naturally want to keep going. If you’re like me the challenge won’t be making yourself keep going, rather the challenge will be making yourself stop.

ToolBox:

1. Almost any computer will work. If you have an old computer you might think about installing a light weight Linux OS to help with “Lag”. If you don’t know where to start with Linux feel free to ask and I’ll point you in the right direction.
2. An Internet connection- This isn’t a must have, but will help test your work. If you don’t have access to the Internet you can still develop using a local server like WAMP or XAMP, or MAMP.
3. A good text editor, or a complete IDE (integrated development environment). For beginners I’d suggest starting with a good text or code editor to keep things simple.
4. A working knowledge of CSS and HTML (PHP and Javascript are great to know, but to start out you’ll need to have a good understanding or HTML and CSS).

I’ll wrap up the first part here and pick things back up in the next article and get into more details and WordPress specifics. If you have any questions or need some suggestions on the ToolBox software just ask and I’ll try to help.