Wordpress ... you've got to love it for it's ease of use, easy setup, simple installation and out of the box functionality. I'm currently looking at PHP development using the CodeIgniter framework and thought, while I'm learning this, let's look under the hood of Wordpress and learn about the plugin and theme development. I'm really getting into it and can see how easit can be to build plugins and themes for clients. The CMS is very simple for clients to use who are not very technical and just need the ability to update content, images etc.
With the "easyness" of Wordpress also comes my main gripe and annoyance ........ The "Overnight" web designer and developer. What do I mean by this? People who have installed Wordpress, loaded a theme, added some content for the first time, added some "magic plugins" and call themself a web designer or developer? If I knew it was that easy, I could have been a web designer / developer a long time ago. I'm all for ease of use and a well built CMS, but for people completing simple configuration of a Wordpress site to call themselves a web designer or web developer, I'm not sure.
I have very good friends and colleagues who are very accomplished web designer and web developers, using a multiple array of languages (CFM, Java, .NET, PHP) and have studied and worked hard for over 10 years to get to where they are in their careers, only to be told "You're quote is quite expensive" or "You're hourly rate is quite high, I can get someone for half of that price". Unfortunately the market is now flooding with "overnights". What can you do?
Well maybe because Wordpress is so easy and so simple, it has allowed non technical people to enter the web marketplace and sell web design and development services, with little or no knowledge of what they are actually selling!
Well that's my little gripe, but I'd be very keen to here anyone else's opinion on this because in my opinion, clients are being misinformed, mis-sold and sometimes just plain lied to.
Comments and thoughts below please.