I've been a Joomla guy for a long time. In fact, I've been a Joomla guy since before Joomla was Joomla. This open source CMS is a big part of why I started Cory Webb Media in 2008, and why I have a career as a web developer today. I've spoken at 15+ Joomla Days, Joomla World Conference, and Joomla User Groups, and I even wrote a book about it. I love Joomla. I love the platform. I love the community. Joomla is very much like family to me. Joomla has earned and very much deserves its spot as the 2nd largest open source CMS.

I say all of that because I know many in the Joomla community who know me might wonder why I, a long-time Joomla guy, would want to write a series of blog posts about WordPress and even encourage Joomla developers to learn WordPress. "Is he going crazy?" No. "Is he abandoning Joomla?" Definitely not. "Does he think WordPress is better than Joomla?" It depends.

Joomla is just 1 of many tools that a professional, well-rounded web developer should have in his or her arsenal of tools. WordPress is another valuable tool to learn, and doing so will only help to make you a better web developer by improving your skills and broadening your understanding of content management systems in general.

To a hammer, every problem looks like a nail

Joomla is better than WordPress for many things, and WordPress is better than Joomla for many things. By learning and becoming proficient with both systems, you have a better opportunity to use the right tool for the job, and not just the tool you know.

Today I am starting a series of blog posts about WordPress concepts for Joomla developers. The purpose of this series is to help my fellow Joomla developers expand their skills by understanding the nuances of WordPress from a Joomla perspective. My goal isn't to convert you from a Joomla developer to a WordPress developer. Far from it. My goal is to help raise the bar for all web developers so that we have more tools at our disposal to help solve our clients' problems, not just with the tool we know or prefer, but with the right tool for the job. Once this series is complete, I will follow it with a series on Joomla concepts for WordPress developers because WordPress developers need to be well-rounded, too.

If you are a Joomla developer, and there is something about WordPress that is confusing to you, send me an email to cory [at] corywebbmedia.com and I'll see about adding it to this series.