I’ve been building and developing websites for over 20 years now. I’ve lost count of how many sites I have done. My guess? Over one thousand…. Sites of all sizes, shapes, goals, running on Windows or Linux. I’ve hand wrote code (and still do, I am in love with PhpStorm), I’ve used lots of different tools, all type of software programs and technologies. I once did an entire shopping cart in Flash. I know, I am guilt as charged. But that was 2002! I also wrote from scratch the code and database for a whole eCommerce site that sell custom wheels and tires.
Since 2010, I’ve being using WordPress, a lot! When I tell my friends, that are either in the IT industry or not, that I am WP enthusiast now, I see two distinct reactions. I will focus on the group (clients, non tech savvy people) that are either frustrated and/or have misconception about this powerful CMS (Content Management System).
There is one main reason this group have a wrong opinion about WordPress: People that actually call themselves developers, WordPress Developers, when in fact they are not. Mario Peshev explains this situation very well on his blog:
Don’t Call Yourself a Developer If You Don’t Code
The “major problem” as he stated and I agree 100%, is the fact that WordPress super users, designers, “integrators”, installers, are calling themselves Developers when in fact they are not! Since the human nature, on many people, is to blame others first instead of assuming theirs own responsibilities and/or lack of knowledge, I see very often in the Website Development industry, these professionals blaming the “tool” or programming language, database, web server, in this case, WordPress, for the issues they have/had using it for clients.
So, I usually also compare WordPress with a racing car (the other comparison is WordPress with Jiu Jitsu). An amateur driver, could drive it, can even speed up and give the impression that he’s fast. Reality is that a professional car racing driver, not only can go fast and take the most from the vehicle, but also understands its mechanics, physics, materials and see potential issues before they actually happen. To be a real WordPress developer, it requires to already know PHP, MySQL, jQuery, CSS, etc and lots of time to learn WordPress development and to do things the right way.
WordPress now runs on 25% of all Websites and has 58% of the CMS market. This number could have been even more, if wasn’t for the major problem above. So, please if you do Websites with WordPress, make sure you define yourself right. Everyone will benefit from that.
What’s your opinion? Are you frustrated with WordPress or your “Developer”? Do you have good experiences? Let me know.
