I have been designing and developing within WordPress since 2010. Initially the projects where just simple personal websites, but complexity and level of development have grown over time. Though I have tried other content managers WordPress remains my preference. If it is good enough for the Walt Disney Company, Toyota, Star Wars, and James Bond it is good enough for me.
In order to improve my coding skill I considered going back and getting a university degree in computer science or entering a full/part-time coding bootcamp. After extensive review of these two options, I conceded having already been designing and developing website (with no formal training) for myself for 5 years and professionally for about 5 years (as 0f 2020) the level of those courses would not match the level I was currently as well as not make sense financially with much of the coursework being repetitive of skills already learned.
I then tasked myself with creating a virtual learning opportunity created to expand my knowledge in specific areas focusing on basics things I never really learned, advanced topics in coding languages I already knew, and full stack development—learning new skills and languages. The curriculum aligns to the following skills:
Skills to learn:
- HTML5 / CSS3—SASS
- Databases
- MongoDB
- SQL / MySQL
- Command Line
- Git
- JavaScript / JQuery / Node.js
- PHP
- Express.js / React.js
- Project Management
WP skills to advance:
- Custom Post Types
- Advanced Custom Fields
300 Hours Virtual Classroom / 4800 Hours Coding / 100 Projects
The idea is to spend over 300 hours in courses, 4800 hours implementing design and development (coding), as I work through 100 projects. Though some projects are small opportunities to learn new skills, many projects are larger more complex development opportunities including full websites.
Using numbers and counting hours does not mean I think that is the way to “qualify” myself as a skilled developer, rather the goal of hitting such numbers will offer the experiences in development I am looking for. The business lesson used to teach this principle is the professor of photographer who asked half his class to take hundreds of photos, while the other half were required to take one perfect photo. At the end of the semester the quality of photos taken by the students taking 100’s of shots was superior to those setting up the perfect shot.
300 Hours Virtual Classroom
| TOPIC | HOURS |
| HTML5 | 10 |
| CSS/SASS | 15 |
| PHP | 10 |
| JavaScript | 10 |
| JQuery | |
| Node | |
| GIT | |
| React | |
| SQL | 10 |
| Databases | |
| TOTAL | 55 |
4800 Hours Coding
| ACTIVITY | HOURS |
| Design | 180 |
| Development | 1850 |
| Testing | Thousands… |
| TOTAL | 2030 + |
*Testing may not reflect actual hours… more like “feels like” hours.
100 Projects
Projects will be listed and linked from this page—though order may not represent the order the projects where completed in.