This is my inaugural post for the NPL Solutions blog. You’ll start to see a lot more from me as the days and weeks continue on, but I’d like to take this first opportunity to comment on the creation of this blog.
It was a real struggle trying to modify a WordPress theme to match our new beta site. I think that speaks largely about the different coding styles that have matured throughout the years. Even something as simple as the layout and organization of your stylesheet(s) can make a huge difference in the way that you work with your code. I’m sure my style would be very difficult for other developers to cope with, despite my best attempts to consistently use best-practice techniques and standards-complaint code.
Trying to understand the process behind the WordPress framework was also a challenge. I admire the managed complexity of the system, and was also very pleased to find that the framework, page structure, etc. were, for the most part, intuitively organized. I understand now why there is no “guide” to creating and/or modifying a WordPress theme simply because of the flexibility and scale of the system. I don’t think that there’s much you couldn’t do with the framework supplied and possibly a few additional plug-ins here and there.
My experience with this project has been a very worthwhile one, and I would definately suggest that anyone with a desire to do something similar should dive right in!
