Should I stick with WordPress or learn Rails?

Hi Everyone,

I know that there is another thread on these forums that asks about WP or Rails, but that user has been deleted, was over 3 years ago, and really isn't the same topic as what I'm going to talk about. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated as I'm drawing a tie with a Pros and Cons list..

Before I get into my main questions I think I should provide some background as to where I'm at now so people steer me in the right direction :)

About 2 years ago I was on unemployment, and I wanted to some kind of web development skill as I thought it would allow me to make some money and was always an area of interest for me. Initially before I came to Treehouse a friend told me all about CMSs and a business idea on how to make money by creating my own custom CMS and selling websites with that.

After I did a lot of research I came to the conclusion that building my own CMS from scratch was rather futile as that would be reinventing the wheel as there are so many CMSs already out there. So I decided to just go for it and learn WordPress because I was already starting to learn HTML/CSS/PHP/SQL. It seemed like the perfect fit.

Unemployment where I'm at only lasts about 6 months so I spent a lot of time learning WP because the clock was ticking, and I wanted to ensure I could make some money by the time I ran out of unemployment money. Believe it or not I was able to land my first client about 5 months in! I made a chunk of change building a basic website for a restaurant and I thought that I was finally going to become the entrepreneur I always wanted to be.

By the time unemployment ran out I was onto my 2nd client, but it was still pretty unsettling as I'm so used to having a steady paycheck. A friend ended up telling me about this software gig that I could apply for and he could put in a good word for me.

After I had the interview and explained my situation and the new found skills I had they hired me! I've honestly loved this job up until a few weeks ago. The thing that was so great about this job is that it really mirrors WP because the software at this company is similar to a CMS. I even started modeling how I met with clients in my own web dev business based on my day job. In the back of my mind I was only going to keep this day job for a couple of years until my side business grew enough.

Fast forward to present day, and frankly I am SICK of teaching people how to "click this button, and upload this image" for the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 10th time. Do people even LISTEN??? I have no problem helping people out, but in my day job and my web dev business people just seem to not listen at all and just call me relentlessly with questions. This is not what I signed up for!

So now this brings me to my main question. I still want to code, but I think I want to get away from the aspect of having to help and babysit people with teaching them how to actually use the product (WP). Furthermore, I'm just kind of "bored" with WP and I'm stuck because I'm not really a good designer I just like the back end stuff :)

I've been thinking lately that Ruby sounds really neat especially Ruby on Rails. Maybe this way I can just build a simple app and sell it and make some kind of passive income model. This way I wouldn't have to just be some customer service jockey and focus on making a product instead.

However, part of me thinks that I'm just copping out as I'm having to get into trickier/harder coding with WP now that I have a solid understanding of the CMS. So if I switch over to Ruby I can kinda start over again with easy stuff and not really have to worry about having clients for a little while.

Rails also seems like a good career move as there are a lot of gigs out there that seem to pay a lot of money unlike WP. I'm thinking maybe having my own company isn't what I originally thought it was, and part of me just wants to get a high paying development job instead.

I'm torn at this point and reading articles online always seems to be a mixed bag. I think if I could get a team of people to help me with my side business that it would be fun again because then I could just focus on dev and not design, but then I fear I'd still be dealing with lazy clients. I suppose I just need to vet my clients out a little better and set better expectations. Then again, having a Rails job where I could work remotely and make bank sounds really appealing too.

So Team Treehouse what do you think I should do!? If you've made it this far I thank you very much for taking the time to read my post. I look forward to all of your insight!

Seth