Hi Reader,

Last year, I started practicing Japanese Jujutsu, one of the oldest forms of martial arts.

It’s a lot to learn! Especially for somebody that is nearly 39 years old, and has no experience with fighting.

But I've been able to make great progress, and find the training very enjoyable. And that's because of how well-organized the instruction is.

There is a single starting point, and then you progress gradually to more advanced techniques. And even the more seasoned practitioners always circle back to refine these foundations.

In addition, the teaching approach doesn’t limit itself to a series of “do this, and that, and then that.” Instead, the instruction for each family of techniques starts with one key aspect.

The trainer ensures you understand what it is and why it’s essential. With that understanding of the crucial aspect, you progress much easier with all the techniques that build up from that foundation.

An example of this is the concept of the triangle. Unfortunately, this blurry picture is the best representation of this I found.

The triangle means you can never square up your feet with your opponent’s.

Why? Because you need to pull him off balance. You cannot take down a person in a solid stance. First, you must destabilize him—something you can only do well in a staggered stance.

So whether it’s a basic leg sweep or an impressive throw, it all starts with you putting one foot forward or backward.

Now, why am I telling you this? Because learning WordPress is very similar to learning a martial art.

Take custom block development, for example. It’s not only one thing to learn. Instead, it’s a variety of skills that you need to combine to be effective.

And all these skills build upon one foundation: a modern development workflow.

A vital component of that workflow is a build process. Build processes have been around for decades. GNU Make, for example, which is a build automation tool, is a staggering 47 years old!

But in the beginning of web development, we didn’t need these tools that other programmers have always used. But now we do.

The good news is that once you have understood the concept and why you need to use a build process, the tooling itself is all done for you.

So, this week, I want to share three videos with you that:

1. Explain what a build is and why it has always been a key part of programming.
2. Show what a build process is and how we use this tool in modern programming.
3. Explain how WordPress offers a ready-made build process for you and what this tool does.

👉 Watch the Modern WordPress JavaScript Development Explained videos​

Next week, we’re going to go into something equally foundational. And that is putting the “block themes have too many customization options” myth to rest.

The fact is that since the WordPress 5.8 release nearly three years ago, you can turn off every single customization option:

1. For all blocks.
2. For specific block types.

And WordPress 6.1 extended this system with PHP-side filters. So now you can turn off customization options for:

1. Specific post types.
2. Specific user roles.

So now we’re at the point where developers can control block themes even better than classic themes, all with out-of-the-box tools in WordPress.

That's the What, we'll dive into the How next week.

Cheers,
Fränk