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Does it specifically mean creating plugins or are people editing the WordPress PHP code?
Do people edit or extend existing plugins? Is that a common practice or not recommended?
** EDIT **
Sorry, I understand that it sounded like I was asking for the definition of the phase “WordPress Developer” but that is not my intended question.
My question is that when a person want to enhance how WordPress works, do they do development by writing plugins or editing the WordPress PHP code?
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As a WordPress Developer, I use PHP to create custom WordPress themes and plugins.
Depends on who you ask…
The old school / high on their soap box side will say you’re only a wp developer if you use custom themes / custom plugins / no page builders.
I’m a wordpress developer because I develop my clients websites in wordpress using primarily oxygen or bricks + ACF. The client doesn’t give a fuck what it’s built with.
I have sites in code, apps in both app stores so it’s not that I can’t do a custom theme / plugin, I just develop using the right tools for the job and for me and my clients, that’s a page builder with ACF and other off the shelf plugins.
If you know how to do custom work and choose to use 3rd party tools to put the site together, your still a developer.
If you don’t know how to start the process of debugging the code or fixing the issue, you probably should call your self something else.
WordPress development can mean many things
1. Working on core. Contributing to the actual platform and participating in discussions on open issues, feature improvements, bugs, etc.
2. Developing themes and plugins from scratch to be used or resold.
3. Creating enhancements to plugins by integrating with custom hooks they may have built into the plugin itself.
4. Building WordPress sites for clients by using custom or prebuilt tools at your disposal.