What Makes a Professional Web Developer?
Jens Meiert, February 1, 2008 / November 4, 2008.
This entry is filed under Web Development.
I’m asking: How should novice web developers learn the craft to build technologically high-quality websites? As professional web developers, we might (finally) help by providing necessary preconditions and basic tips in order to lay the foundation for better web development education. But what should be first priority for rookies? From my point of view, this is acquiring robust technology knowledge and gaining extensive hand-coding experience.
But is learning web standards by reading specifications (I claim that you learn faster by picking the best resources available and that there seem to be few advantages in reading fora when you’re a newbie), understanding the the Web is for all people and separation of document structure, presentation, and “behavior” philosophies, and learning to code by coding by hand a lot already sufficient? Could these principles along with additional, well-written resources already and truly mean desirable guidance? I tend to sign this but am curious: What are your thoughts, what is the minimum necessary to become a professional web developer?
The answers could probably result in a kind of “canonical” guide for the next web dev experts, even when we want to include resources and training for certain design and decorative skills.
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Comments
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On February 1, 2008, 19:16 CET, Lazar said:
I think that it is very important to develop some pet project that you care about from the very beginning (vague idea in a head) to the very end (trying to make it a commercial success, whether that means making money, or making it popular among targeted audience). I think that that provides a valuable experience, and provides you with insights that are not easy to get by working on projects where you are told what to do, how to do it, and maybe why it is important to do it in certain way.
By being responsible for all the aspects of the project, and by being guided with the sincere desire for a project to succeed, you will either realize that:
a) you are born with a talent or had some amazing luck, and your project became an overnight success with minimal effort invested in the development!
or
b) you will realize that you lack some of these talents (like me), and that there are many aspects of project development (besides coding) to learn about that you did not even think of when you started the project.
Lack of talent will ‘force you’ to read and learn. I say force, as you are really driven by the desire for a project to succeed. Besides coding, you will probably be reading stuff about design after you realize that good idea is not enough, and that we all like looking at pretty things and people. It will take you few friendly feedbacks to realize that not everyone has your idea in their heads, and that if you know how to use your site, not everybody will – and therefore you learn about usability. Than you realize that you need to put the word out, and to do that, you start reading about search engine optimization, and other ways of promoting the site. Maybe for some project you need a financial support, so you are forced to learn some ’salesman’ skills in order to get people interested. ‘What if I get million users?’ you ask yourself in a dream. Well, next day you look into optimization of the PHP code, MySQL queries, different types of caching, reducing HTTP requests with image sprites… Maybe you look into source codes of some of the most visited sites, like Google, and realize that they name their Javascript variables with 1-3 characters. You also see that they don’t care for XHTML validation as ‘&’ in urls is not encoded (saves couple hundred bytes for search results multiplied with millions of searches a day!). If you are really ambitious, you start learning about internationalization and localization, and hope your site will be used by people whose languages you don’t even know how to pronounce. Than you see that almost every site has some kind of Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, and knowing that USA lawyers are like sharks, you look into placing something similar on your site. Etc. Etc.
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On February 1, 2008, 20:15 CET, Greg said:
Continuous research into best practices and latest techniques from sites on the web (everyday), learn to hand code xhtml and css to a good standard - get to grips with setting things for SEO, develop good taste for design, color, layout and typography. Finally, learn to be a great graphic artist - use the best tool in the world for web design Xara Xtreme.
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On February 2, 2008, 16:08 CET, Jens Meiert said:
Thank you, Lazar, Greg!
I think that it is very important to develop some pet project that you care about from the very beginning
If you are really ambitious, you start learning about internationalization and localization
Good point, this must not be forgotten.
Continuous research into best practices and latest techniques from sites on the web
I wonder if this isn’t far from trivial concerning what sites to pick? Standards are pretty much “unambiguous”, but some web dev issues tend to be discussed only based on “opinions” and with almost religious enthusiasm (see Conditional Comments). And yet recently, well-respected ALA almost positioned itself as a friend of browser sniffing/versioning …
Finally, learn to be a great graphic artist
This is the question, is that truly important for a web developer? I’m not sure, but since I definitely recommend to think outside the own box, I could buy it anyway.
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On February 3, 2008, 7:24 CET, Tony Turner said:
This is an excellent article. I am a 44 year old profesional in the accounting industry. A CPA who only two months ago began the task of understanding internet marketing and the inner workings. The past two months have been devoted to research only; until an understanding could be found of all the parts needed to make a whole. In completing the whole, I’ve made mistakes along the way, but feel that if professional folks would step up to the plate they could help newbies like myself avoid many of the pitfalls, tons of professionals would benefit from the rewards directly. Good information is a rare commodity folks. It has taken me every bit of 2-3 months to gain an educated understanding of all of the parts that make up the engine. When professionals don’t step up, many other folks do so in the form of easy make money overnight promises. I am proud to say that I am changing careers at this stage of my life and would welcome real and insightful information that does not cost a buck per subject with no real value at the end of the day. I am willing however, to pay for real information, pricing irrespective, if it delivers!! I appreciate this article because I have a keen interest in delivering quality pages. I learned the term assessibility and had never even thought about it until I started my research project.
The bottom line, I can learn from some fly by night the incorrect way, or you can help steer a thirsing newbie in a direction that benefits all parties.
I don’t even have a website at the time of this writing and I’m glad. Now that I know to separate content from structure and a few other tidbits, the next two months will be interesting.
That’s my story and I’m sticking with it!
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On February 3, 2008, 11:39 CET, Ben Buchanan said:
To produce a really high quality website, I think you need to have an understanding of accessibility, device/platform independence, progressive enhancement and internationalisation. I think you also need to understand the concept of user experience/usability, even if you don’t occupy that role yourself.
I’m thinking of this quote:
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
If you start out knowing that a good website should be accessible to all people regardless of their software, hardware and physical traits, then the rest should follow. Most people still seem to start out with Dreamweaver and IE and/or being taught table-based development.
So the conceptual groundwork has to be there. If someone believes that “whatever works in IE is fine”, then they’re not going to be what I personally consider a professional web developer.
After that, yes you need to be able to hand code before you’ll truly understand what’s going on. You don’t need to memorise doctypes (I never have nor will), but apart from that you should be able to produce a basic page with nothing more than a text editor.
In the long run you will have to update your skills; read industry blogs; while not having to be obsessive you need to avoid falling too far out of the loop. Ideally find professional groups to give you a support network.
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On February 5, 2008, 14:22 CET, Jens Meiert said:
Tony, Ben, thank you as well!
or you can help steer a thirsing newbie in a direction that benefits all parties.
That should be our goal, definitely!
Now that I know to separate content from structure and a few other tidbits, the next two months will be interesting.
Keep us posted, please
If you start out knowing that a good website should be accessible to all people regardless of their software, hardware and physical traits, then the rest should follow.
Right, this fits with my observation that at some institutions, places, whatever, you don’t even hear of certain concepts. Me, I made the experience that neither my former tech education nor my CS studies even mentioned the word “accessibility”. That’s the least we should focus on in education, right …
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On February 25, 2008, 18:25 CET, Dave said:
I’m going to be careful, because I’ve learned that teaching (when done right) is as complex as web dev – you really have to adapt your teaching plan for learners who prefer different learning styles.
To grow as a novice web developer, I think you need:
- a pet project (this was Lazar’s great suggestion, I just appreciate its greatness)
- a desire to improve your skills and learn (as opposed to dropping in bits of code from others)
- a person (or community) you can ask for help (because it’s near impossible to Google for solutions to your problem when you don’t know what the problem actually is)
- resources (web space that is very easy to use and connect to, a computer you are comfortable with using and a reliable Internet connection)When I want to learn a technology, it’s almost always the resources part that slows me down…I try to struggle along with an old computer on a tiny desk with no Internet connection, and it just isn’t practical.
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On March 2, 2008, 17:31 CET, Jens Meiert said:
Dave, what I also hear in your comment is the passion and commitment variable (which would certainly be characteristic for a professional) …?
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On May 19, 2008, 22:30 CEST, llamafruit said:
Greetings all. I’m new and it seems fascinating.
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On February 11, 2009, 15:17 CET, Richard Morton said:
I think that hand coding is important and a much better way of learning than reading from books or standards.
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On February 11, 2009, 15:19 CET, Richard Morton said:
And I should add that it is perfectly possible to be self taught as a professional web developer. I haven’t attended a single web design related course and I don’t feel that I have missed out as a result.
