Wordpress vs Front-End Developers.

I am a Wordpress Developer. 60% of my work is developing a theme for a client. This means I have to know all of the Front-End-Stuff and the Backend-stuff (PHP/MySQL) too. The other 40% are developing plugins and other Wordpress specific stuff, where only a little bit of Front-End skills are needed. What I am trying to say is, that as a Wordpress developer, you are a often a Front-End-Developer too. I'd take the Front-End path and if you like it, the Wordpress path after the Front-End path.

You da man, Markus! Thanks for that info. What about employers though? In your experience, what do they like to see more in the current state of the job market?

I can only speak for the job market in Austria… I think there it is 50 / 50. I see many job offers like "Front-End Developer with experience in Wordpress (and other CMS, but Wordpress is dominating)

I started with HTML/CSS about 9 years ago and about 6 years ago I dived into Wordpress and it was a breeze, because I already knew the Front-End stuff and "only" had to learn the Wordpress Stuff and PHP itself. I'd do it again this way, because the learning curve of HTML/CSS is not so steep. Wordpress is also easy to learn, if you have some knowledge in HTML / CSS / JS (the basic Front-End Stuff)

You cant really compare Wordpress to Front End Developers, because Front End Developers are the same type of developer that develops on wordpress. Wordpress does not replace the front end developer, it is a framework a front end developer can use. Other comparative frameworks to Wordpress are Drupal and Joomla, but a frontend developer can use those frameworks to develop a site. They are not replacements for Front End Developers.

That makes a lot of sense too. I personally haven't really done anything with Wordpress yet, so I don't know how much code is involved, or which types of code.

The server-side language is PHP, and it interacts with a MySQL database, but the front end languages are the same as everything else on the web: a combination of HTML, CSS and JS. Wordpress is just the framework, or toolset a Front End developer, or designer can use to build a Content Management System for a client. So yeah, just trying to clarify the difference between what Wordpress is, and what a Front End Developer is. One does not 'replace' the other.

Say I'm a felon and jobs could be scarce but not impossible. I can find clients on my own I actually have one but I cant finish her site as a basic front end developer because she wants more than a regular website. I need a CMS and so now I need to learn wordpress to build her a blog and a store I guess but yeah I wanted to do Front end first but it looks like I may learn WordPress first so I can get to the money faster and then from there I am going to finish learning front end in my spare time...is that a god plan???