The vast majority of things in webdev land work similarly to something else. The trick is to learn the underlying pattern and then just remember the parts that

The vast majority of things in webdev land work similarly to something else. The trick is to learn the underlying pattern and then just remember the parts that make a specific implementation of the idea different. The exception tends to be platform extension (the wordpress/joomla stuff you mention) where every platform has it's own patterns and thought process and I just write off as project overhead.