“Where do I start?”, “Where do I go next?”
Questions we often hear at meetups, WordCamps or people passing/mailing/tweeting by.
This blogpost is an attempt to provide a starting point, or to help you find the ‘next step’ or the ‘next guide’. The list contains handy learning resources and tips for both web in general and more specific for WordPress.
A thank you to Tom Hermans, Frank Goossens, Veerle Verbert, Jeroen Rotty, Pascal Casier and many others for adding tips!
Did we miss a link/tip? Add yours via the comment form. Tips can be anything: what helped you get started, what got you re-started and what resources do you still go to on a regular basis?
Table of contents
- Ad hoc resources (quick issue-help) & resources of projects
- Meeting peers (meetup, conferences, ..)
- Contributing
- Video resources (not explicitly courses)
- Blogs etc (personal)
- Blogs etc (non-personal)
- Books
- Podcasts
- Paid/free courses (online)
- Paid/free courses (offline)
- Looking for motivation?
Ad hoc resources
Resources for quick help with issues & help/documentation resources of projects.
- source code (potentially of all open source software, it remains the best documentation and learning resource for coders)
- https://developer.wordpress.org/
full code reference + handbooks for theme, plugin development etc - https://stackoverflow.com/
- Google 🙂
- slack teams:
- https://wordpressbelgium.slack.com
- https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ – the official contributor slack of the WordPress project
- https://fullstackbelgium.slack.com
- https://womencodebe.slack.com
- https://fronteersnl.slack.com
- colleagues
- facebook groups:
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/advancedwp/
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/wordpressspeedup for performance optimization
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/internet.questions for wordpress/ SEO
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/wordpresspluginsuggestions/
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/dtv.wordpress/ (NL)
- …
- https://nl.wordpress.org/support/ – the Dutch wordpress.org support forums
- https://wordpress.org/support/ for the global (EN) support forums
Meeting peers (meetup, conferences, ..)
- WordCamps
- ad hoc informal events that may happen in your area: twunch, barcamp, twooze, brown bag lunches (in a bar or at an agency), ..
- events from your local graduate schools or universities
- Meetups
- WordPress:
- Meetup Antwerpen
- Meetup Hasselt
- Meetup Ieper
- ALL WordPress meetup groups (on the meetup.com chapter of the WordPress Foundation): https://www.meetup.com/pro/wordpress/
- WordPress:
- Other conferences
- PHPBenelux
- Fronteers
- Full Stack Europe (in Antwerp in 2019)
- WordSesh (an online conferenc about all things WordPress)
- JSConf (worldwide)
- CSSConf (worldwide)
- …
Contributing
- Start from https://make.wordpress.org/ to know about the .org teams (and maybe jump in)
- “Good first bugs”: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/tickets/good-first-bugs
- Keep an eye on your local meetup groups: they might organise a contribution meetup. WordCamps often also have a contributor day.
Video resources (not explicitly courses)
- WordPress.tv
- = archive of talks from WordCamps and Meetups, most talks are published a couple of weeks after the event and stey public forever
- All talks from WordCamp Europe 2018
- All talks from WordCamp Antwerp 2018
- All talks from WordCamp US 2017
- …
- https://www.youtube.com/wordpress (alternative for WordPress.tv, synced)
- Video’s of other conferences:
- Fronteers
- https://conferences.codegram.com/ met o.a. Full Stack Fest
- An Event Apart (https://aneventapart.com/news/videos)
- YouTube
- Other
Blogs etc (personal)
Including personal blogs, twitter accounts, twitter lists etc.
- https://ma.tt/
- https://danielbachhuber.com/
- https://tommcfarlin.com/
- https://carlalexander.ca/
- twitter: brad frost, Jeremy Keith, wesbos, dev.to, Andy clarke, chris coyier, lea verou, ana tudor, rachel andrew, Michiel Heijmans (SEO), Jonathan snook, smashing magazine, luke wroblewski, sara soueidan, javascriptdaily, otto42, matt cromwell, mika, alistapart, abookapart, css-tricks, ..
Blogs etc (non-personal)
tool tip: pocket.io, helps you organise your reading list.
- https://themeshaper.com/
- https://wptavern.com/
- https://digwp.com/
- https://pearsonified.com/
- https://laravel-news.com/
- https://wprealm.com/
- https://torquemag.io/
- https://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/
- https://deliciousbrains.com/blog/
- https://poststatus.com/
- http://alistapart.com
- https://css-tricks.com/
- https://www.wpbeginner.com/
- https://www.smashingmagazine.com/
- https://www.sitepoint.com/ (also newsletters like Versioning)
- https://www.wplounge.nl/
- https://bobwp.com/
- RSS-feeds of blogs: http://wp-info.org/wp-rss-feeds/
Books
- SitePoint (publisher)
- O’Reilly (publisher)
- A Book Apart (publisher, small practical books)
- Professional WordPress Design & Development (Brad Williams)
- Atomic Design (Brad Frost)
Podcasts
tool tip: Pocket Casts or Google Podcasts, podcast apps
WordPress podcasts:
- WordPress Weekly
- WPWatercooler
- kitchensinkWP (weekly 15min)
- Matt Report
- BobWP (WP & e-commerce)
- Poststatus (but less active now)
- WPBuilds
- WPMRR WordPress Podcast
General web & tech podcasts:
- Tech45 (local tech podcast, since 2009)
- Nerdland maandoverzicht
- Syntax.fm
- Shop Talk Show
- Boagworld
- Indie Hackers
- Distributed
- + check 15 Podcasts Every Website Designer Should Be Listening To (Line25)
Paid/free courses (online)
- MDN: Learn web development > Front-end web developer
- Lynda.com is now LinkedIn Learning
- Udemy
- Complete WordPress Theme & Plugin Development Course [2020] (Zac Gordon) (a good place to get started with #WordPress development)
- Become a WordPress Developer: Unlocking Power With Code
- Git a Web Developer Job: Mastering the Modern Workflow
- …
- WP101
- Yoast Academy
- treehouse
- https://javascriptforwp.com/
- https://www.codecademy.com/
- https://www.skillshare.com/
- FrontendMasters
Paid/free courses (offline)
- workshops fronteers
- talks/workshops at WordCamps
- talks/workshops at meetups
- higher education: full bachelor/master programs, post-bachelor programs, single courses out of an existing program (sometimes possible), extracurricular programs open for non-regular-students, ..
- https://www.zelfstudie.be/
- Training lessons from the WP Training Team: https://github.com/wptrainingteam
Looking for motivation?
- propose a lightning talk (or longer) at your meetup group: pick a topic, learn & experiment and go out to share your newly gathered knowledge! (pick a reasonable date & then you have a deadline so you don’t procrastinate 😉
- http://www.csszengarden.com
- find a partner or mentor (ask around at your meetup group if anyone is interested)
Did we miss a link/tip? Add yours via the comment form.
Is a resource outdated? Let us know in the comments!
