A career as a WordPress Developer is a good choice. But before that, you need to know the languages used in WordPress Development. The languages are – MySQL, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JQuery, and ReactJS.
Suppose you are a beginner-level web developer who is stepping into WordPress. In that case, you should already know that WordPress is a Content Management System which means that it is a CRUD application that allows the developers to create, read, update, and delete content.
For example, when a developer creates a post in WordPress, the form data is submitted to the server, where it gets processed and stored in the database.
Similarly, when they visit a post or a page, the server receives the request, processes it, retrieves the post’s data from the database, and sends the response back to the browser.
The server-side makes WordPress a dynamic system that will be unlike a static HTML site which generates pages on the go. So, you can divide the programming languages which are used by such a website into two:
- Server-side languages
- Client-side languages
There are many centers that offer WordPress development courses in Durgapur to beginners.
Database: MySQL
A CMS needs a database in order to store all the data like content and user information. For that purpose, a WordPress developer uses MySQL, which is a relational database management system.
A relational database helps the developers by storing the information in the form of tables. Apart from MySQL, Oracle is another example of such a system.
Unlike Oracle, MySQL is open-source that makes it ideal for WordPress.
Most web hosts are supported by MySQL as well. So the developers can install WordPress on almost all hosts.
Languages on the Front-End
HTML
Any web page that you will see today is made up of HTML unless it is a legacy flash website.
In short, the server processes the script and generates it to the HTML code for the browser to render.
How can PHP generate HTML? It does not happen automatically without a developer. That’s where other tool themes come in.
Themes consist of template files where the developer can define the HTML structure and the PHP script. In a template file, the developer can mix HTML and PHP codes. When the server executes the file, all the PHP code will be converted to appropriate HTML.
That’s why the developers do not see any PHP script in their browsers. They can verify the script by right-clicking and viewing the page source.
CSS
An HTML document without any design looks blank. CSS or Cascading Style Sheets helps to solve the problem. It is a markup language which defines the look and feel of the elements on a web page.
For example, if the beginner wants headings to be bold, he can define them with CSS.
CSS can be provided inline in the HTML or as a separate file with a .css extension. If CSS is a separate file, then it should be linked from the HTML.
WordPress has standard methods to include files such as CSS. The developers usually do it in the theme’s functions.php file.
This language is most useful while defining the formatting of HTML documents and visual appearance. As a beginner, you will find that almost every theme has a style.css file. This style.css file determines the formatting of WordPress pages. Also, it is so simple to use because most WordPress users can understand the basic CSS language just by staring at the style.css file of the WordPress theme. It also allows you to style HTML elements directly in CSS. Clearly, CSS and HTML are like BFFs. CSS is that which helps you to create a beautiful appearance of the website based on HTML pages. Also, you can animate almost every element on your web page with the help of CSS.
Javascript
HTML and CSS are markup languages, But JavaScript is a programming language.
Although one can use Javascript as a server-side language also, WordPress uses this language on the client-side only for enhancements.
Thus Javascript is not a necessity in WordPress. When it is needed, you can add it to their theme, just like CSS files.
If a developer wants to work on both the frontend browser and backend server, then HTML is the ultimate solution. In short, JavaScript helps to keep the developer from writing long and repetitive codes while increasing their work efficiency and complete the job quicker. It is one of the best programming languages for learning as the language can give you job security and increase your demand as a WordPress website developer.
Client-side Libraries
JQuery
WordPress package ships with built-in support are required for the JQuery library. So, if their plugin or theme requires it, you don’t have to link it separately.
Suppose your theme’s javascript file requires jQuery to work, but you can add it as a dependency while enquiring the file from functions.php.
JQuery can be explained as a feature-rich JavaScript library, which is very fast. John Resig developed and joined this fast and concise library in 2006. The simple motive of jQuery is “Write less, do more.” It simplifies event handling, Ajax instructions for rapid web development, animating, and HTML document traversing. The key features or tasks that the developers can accomplish with jQuery may include Dom manipulation, Event handling, animations, Ajax support, and Cross Browser Support. This language is a unique lightweight library about only 19KB in size, and it supports the latest technologies such as CSS3 selectors and basic XPath syntax. The developers can easily download the jQuery library on the local machine and integrate it into the HTML code. Besides, you can directly include jQuery in your HTML code from Content Delivery Network.
ReactJS
React is the javascript framework which powers this new interface. So, if you are looking to creating custom blocks for the editor, then knowing React will be helpful.
Since its use is limited to the WordPress backend alone, you may never need ReactJS while developing themes or plugins for the frontend.
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