Nowadays every second person in the world calls himself a developer. That’s why the owners of the WordPress (WooCommerce) websites, who want to work with highly qualified programmers, should know the difference between the beginner and the professional developer. In this article I will tell you the main differences, which will let you know, if you are working with a beginner in WordPress (WooCommerce) website development, and you should change the developer.
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Newbie |
Professional |
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Works in premium theme or even worse in plugins, WordPress nucleus Consequence.When updating the system, all the changes are broken. |
Creates a subsidiary theme, makes all the changes in it. |
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Works on the original website with traffic. Consequence. With wrong and unsuccessful changes all the users can see the problems. You are losing your clients. |
Works with a cloned on his own computer or dev website version. After testing the changes, uploads them on the original website. |
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A lot of plugins are installed (usually more than 10, but it doesn’t concern all the plugins). Consequence. Poor website performance. |
The least possible number of plugins is used. |
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The whole page templates and blocks with a small number of changes are rewritten (this mostly concerns WooCommerce) Consequence. The changes will be broken after updating WooCommerce |
Avoids page templates and blocks rewriting with the help of hooks. |
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Backups are not made before starting the work Consequence. With unsuccessful changes in the database or in the files it is impossible to restore their original state. |
Backups are made. |
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Writes styles in CSS files, with the help of plugins (for example SiteOrigin CSS) or in theme settings. Consequence. Code duplication and properties interruption take place with the help of !important, the weight of the website becomes high and it’s loaded for a long time. |
Uses SASS (SCSS) or LESS. |
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Doesn’t use gulp.js / grunt / webpack Consequence.CSS, js files are not combined and compressed, images are not minified. It means that the website has poor performance. |
gulp.js / grunt / webpack are used. |
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Git is not used. Consequence.None of the changes can be restored, it’s almost impossible to work in a team. |
Git is used. |
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js, CSS are not connected through wp_enqueue_script, wp_enqueue_style Consequence. Plugins on website optimization, on loading speed increase do not work. It means, a website has poor performance |
Styles and scripts are connected correctly. |
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PHP, CSS, js codes duplication Consequence. A website has poor performance. |
No code duplication |
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Can’t use debug js, PHP codes Consequence. Programs blindly, when errors occur, spends a lot of time on their elimination. This, for example, especially concerns PHP ajax requests. |
Can use debug js, PHP codes |
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Can’t use SSH access to the server Consequence.Website transfers are made through FTP, it takes a lot of time and the errors occur more often while transferring. |
Can use SSH access to the server |
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Can’t use wp cli Consequence. Can’t make a quick website transfer, can’t install all the required PHP modules, can’t regenerate images etc. |
Can use wp cli |
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Can’t use and is afraid to use third-party js, CSS, PHP libraries Consequence. Reinvents the wheel, which won’t surely go far. |
Can use third-party js, CSS, PHP libraries |
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Writes the code which he, himself, doesn’t understand in the future. |
ПWrites the code, which can be read both by a machine and other developers. |
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Doesn’t use IDE, such as PHPStorm Consequence. The code is unreadable, it takes a lot of time to write a code. |
Uses IDE |
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Doesn’t use code testing tools, such as, for example, PHPUnit Consequence. In case of unexpected users’ actions, errors and website crashes occur. |
Can and do test their code |
We could have discussed ООP, API and many many other things in this article, but we should stop here.
I realise that this information can seem complicated to a person, who is not a programmer, but it’s really uneasy to distinguish a professional developer from a non-professional. Unfortunately, you can’t be sure that something that can work at first sight, will not bring you any problems in future. But, the more you delve into everything yourself, the quicker you will be able to find someone you need.
The same topic, but from the other hand and in simple language, is disclosed in our article: “Mistakes when hiring and working with developers freelancers”.
I wish you to find the one you will be able to trust all the problems connected with your WordPress website, and not to delve into all the terms and subtleties of website development process.