Is WordPress Cheating?

The feeling of creating something that is entirely your own handiwork is one of those experiences that fills the new web developers of the world with the same kind of pride reserved for the time you realise you’re riding your bike by yourself, and your parents let go several yards back.

Is the feeling of accomplishment marred by building a site using something that already exists though?

There are a lot of tools at your disposal as a foundation for a new website.

Rob teaches how to use two of the most commonly used foundations available in his complete web development course — WordPress and Bootstrap.

WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS), which allows you to design a site around ready-made themes and plugins, and provides a back-end control panel to easily add new posts and pages. It’s also the most commonly used tool in the world used to build websites, being behind an estimated 24.1% of all websites online.

Bootstrap is framework offered by Twitter that defines specific element types and how to display them. You can then create a website by adding elements that you assign as having a specific type, allowing Bootstrap’s pre-made libraries to do all the formatting for you, leaving a sleek, consistent, and (unless you make a special effort otherwise) responsive site.

If you’ve spent good hours, days, weeks and months perfecting your HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and MySQL skills though, why would you then want to surrender them to a mass-use CMS or framework?

What would be the point in making the effort to learn the fundamentals if you can fall back on a framework to do it for you?

This is a question that I’ve seen asked a few times, and though it’s an understandable question to ask, it’s not really the correct question to ask.

Use what’s best for the client

If you plan on making a career of web development, an understanding of web technologies is vital. So however is knowing when to use them.

You should ask yourself whether your website is being built for you, or for your client. Though your career choice is for you, most of the time, individual websites are for your clients.

Clients with active websites often need to make frequent updates to their content. Clients with active websites may have tight deadlines that mean that they can’t justify unnecessary time being spent.

There’s no shame in using WordPress to build a site for a client who needs a website they easily log into a control panel to quickly add a post to, just as there’s no shame in using Bootstrap to build a website that’s responsive and consistent for a client on a budget and a time limit.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that your skills and knowledge are redundant. There’s much to be done!

Use your knowledge to customise

WordPress is a modular system built with PHP and MySQL, which custom themes and plugins can be installed for. Bootstrap is essentially a pre-made CSS template and Jquery libraries. Both are customisable.

Your knowledge of web technologies gives you the freedom not to be shackled by the defaults of WordPress, or its themes or plugins, nor Bootstrap’s default appearance.

It liberates you to create your own themes, develop a new plugin, and make Bootstrap your (or your client’s) own. The time you’ve saved in not creating a system that already exists is time you can invest in more useful enterprises.

In addition to the solid core these technologies have given you, you’re now able to tailor your site down to the n^th detail, leaving your client (hopefully) blown away.

Use your head

Though I’ve so far waved the flag for making the most of CMSs and frameworks, it’s not to say that they are always the answer. There are some projects for which existing foundations just aren’t suitable. Sometimes, a need calls for a bespoke job.

Even when these occasions don’t occur, remember that WordPress and Bootstrap started life as developers’ bespoke projects. Websites are mostly for your clients. Mostly.

Geeking out and making something just out of your own curiosity has been the basis for many of the web’s greatest successes, so don’t be afraid to experiment, follow your interests and see just how far you can take what you’ve learnt. In the quoted words of one of technology’s late greats himself: Stay young, stay foolish.

Andy Dunn

Andy Dunn is a web developing, photo taking, blog writing Wulfrunian based in Cambridge. He can generally be found on two wheels.