Learning Multiple Languages In A Year, Am I Misguided?

[Mulsiphix]

I am planning on starting a website business and want to use WordPress multisite as my CMS. I will be creating hundreds of websites and need the ability to make them look very different and non-standard issue WordPress. From my understanding from browsing the WP Codex I will need to learn PHP, CSS, HTML, XML, JavaScript, JQuery, AJAX, and become familiar with the WordPress engine itself. Most of my customization of these websites will be purely theme based. I imagine I can start the business with a solid beginner/so-so intermediate knowledge of each language. It is just theme creation after all. All of the hard work is already done (WP Core) and XML/CSS/HTML is more about memorization than mastery.

My Question: Am I shooting too high here? Is my chance of success ridiculously small? I figure I have about one year to learn whatever I can before I have to start building my WordPress web development business. I have always been good at figuring out code I haven't studied but I don't know enough to write code from scratch. I am a quick learner and have a good 8 hours a day to dedicate to learning and practicing.

I would love to hear general feedback, suggestions, bad news, good news, anything you have to offer.

[tracknut]

Your chances are very very small of success. Most developers I know, and all the *good* developers I've known over the years, have a passion for writing code. When they're learning, they are coding 24x7, sticking their nose in every corner of a language to figure out all the details. They treat their code as art, it is something to appreciate, come back and make adjustments for visual and performance reasons; something to enjoy.

By comparison, your proposal here has no passion, it describes a process of rote memorization to replace what should be artistic creation; a trade off of quantity over quality. You've been registered on this site for seven years, had seven posts, and still can say "... I don't know enough to write code from scratch" - to me that means you don't have the aptitude or interest to actually do it.

Sorry for being blunt, it's just how I see it from what you've posted. Hopefully I'm wrong and you can come back in a year and tell us it's been a huge success.

Dave

[KULP]

Just to add on... why are you already shooting at making hundreds of websites? Relax, try your hand at some code, and see what you can do. You say now it doesn't take 'mastery' but maybe when you try it out you'll realize it actually does when you want optimization, cross browser compatibility, and efficiency. And let me tell you, these are all important when you have your eyes set on 'hundreds of websites.'

It definitely is possible to get fairly proficient at CSS/HTML/JS in a year but you're gonna need to have more of a passion to learn it than to make the bucks. These things take time and you're going to need something to drive you to continue your learning. You may also want to try and understand the difference between the 'Computer Programming' board and the client side development boards.

[David Garcia]

Learning a second language, particularly as an adult, can be difficult. A language's difficulty varies by its similarity to a person's native tongue.
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