Quick Start Guide - Get You Started Becoming a More Awesome Developer

Quick Start Guide – Get You Started Becoming a More Awesome Developer

We understand getting started can be the toughest part. Where do you start? Remember that WordPress is built on PHP. Genesis is built on WordPress and PHP. Therefore, you need to start with the fundamentals and most common instructions in PHP. Then you will want to move onto the WordPress Plugin API, as you use it every day regardless if you are a theme or plugin developer.

We put together this quick start guide to help you on your quest to be a more awesome PHP, WordPress, and/or Genesis web developer.

If you are an absolute beginner or aspiring developer who wants to start at the very beginning, then I recommend that you start here with the Absolute Beginner series.

1IntroIntroduction to WordPress Web Development
2PHPStart with a solid knowledge of PHP.
3WordPressWordPress is built on PHP.

PHP Building Blocks

Before you start, you will want to build the PHP sandbox project, which you will use to build and test PHP code.

Fundamentals

Start with the following PHP Docx and Labs. You will want to do this content in this order:

Most Common

Then go through these common PHP constructs, as they are used throughout WordPress.

Required for WordPress Plugin API

Finally, these are required in order to understand the WordPress Plugin API and Events (such as add_filter and add_action):

WordPress Quick Starter Map

After you get through the PHP list above, then you are ready to tackle WordPress. Start with the Plugin API constructs, as these allow you to do your work and extend WordPress.

But first you will want to build the sandbox starter demo plugin, which you will use to build and test code here when doing WordPress.

Now you can go deeper into action events:

Now you can go deeper into filter events:

Plugin Developer

You need to take this awesome lab, Let’s Build a Blog Intro Custom Plugin. In this lab, you are building a real-world custom plugin from scratch, while learning about callbacks, code construction, clean code, sanitizing, using views (no HTML in your business logic), database, SQL, and so much more.

Theming Developer

Here are labs for you:

Adding Google Fonts to Your WordPress Website