Learning PHP and WordPress
One of the hardest things about working at an internship is time learning something new. As I mentioned in last week’s blog, I am learning how to utilize PHP and work with WordPress at the same time. PHP being that server-side language is a bit of information overload because there is not really a right way to learn it. When it comes to learning a new language it is a lot of researching, understanding, trial, and error. The majority of the time it will be trial and error. Let look at this a bit more in-depth.
PHP studying is very hard since there is no proper way to learn it. There are not as many templates or original code you can use like in HTML or Reactjs. You have to look at the given code and understand what is being written there and most of the time it is snippets of HTML, Javascript, and PHP being written here and there. You are reading articles and watching videos to gain a better grasp of the language. You may not always be getting a good grasp of the language, but you are learning. You are learning the file structure and how the code is initially set up for future projects you may work on. Once you that knowledge, every time you work on a new project it becomes increasingly easier to work on. After that, you start to gain an understanding of PHP.
Since you have been researching a lot of PHP and WordPress, you are starting to get a better understanding of how the code flows and works. The general idea is now understood, and you can insert code into the header, footer, and index to begin your journey into the world of PHP and how it works with WordPress. You know that snippets of HTML go into the header and footer with a PHP function call wp_head() and wp_footer in which WordPress retrieves that information and inserts it into the web page. Now, using your understanding of WordPress you may want to try writing some PHP yourself since the best way to learn is by doing.
Trial and Error are a big thing when starting out learning anything new. Activities such as riding a bicycle, speaking a new language, and even coding because you will fail, fall, and get upset for not arriving at your goal. It is going to happen, but whenever you fall it is good to pick yourself back up and try even harder to achieve your goals. When the code yells at you for some kind of error what it is telling us there is something wrong somewhere in your code. That may seem simple enough, but a single error can sometimes be the cause of numerous headaches which make it important to always look over your code and take breaks when you can. When working with PHP and WordPress, the best is that you can see the changes you made live. You can with any text editor, but you have a designated web page that allows you to view changes you made to your index, pages, causes, single, and other files you work on for WordPress. PHP and WordPress is hard, but at the same time it can be enjoyable to learn something so fall down a couple times and get back up and work hard on your code!
