My answer – probably. But there is one instance when you shouldn’t.
Let’s deal with the ‘why you should’s’ first:
- You can use the same theme for ALL your clients sites – this means you become expert at using Thesis theme = save time and energy and more time giving value to your clients.
- The hook framework + the custom_functions.php combo means that making minor code changes to the site is always from the same place. No need to spend 15 minutes search for that one line of code that you can’t remember where you put it. With thesis you know it’s in custom_functions.php.
- You know future updates of Wordpress aren’t going to break the theme, because Chris Pearson (the creator) makes too much money now from Thesis to let it die. In other words it has momentum. Don’t underestimate how important this is.
- You know future updates of Thesis aren’t going to break your custom code – because the CSS and the custom functions files are seperate from the Thesis code framework, so that part can be updated as much as you like and it won’t affect your customizations.
Here’s the one drawback you need to consider:
Because Thesis is now so comprehensive, it means you can potentially do a lot of quick customizations for a client in not much time, without touching the source code. But if you want to do some MAJOR customizations to wordpress, that not even the Thesis hooks can handle, prepare for a headache – it’s no longer a case of opening up index.php and editing the appropriate code. Thesis is a web of different files and folders, and it can take hours and hours to track down the appropriate code and figure out what to do with it. And once you start messing with the core Thesis code, you know that future Thesis updates are going to cause problems with overwrites etc.
That said, Thesis is a great tool for developers for 90% of client websites. So much so that you’ll probably free up a couple of days a week for yourself with the decreased workload. Sweet!