WDR #2: Web Developers Needed for a Website

Published on November 25, 2008 (ā†» June 10, 2024), filed under (RSS feed for allĀ categories).

This and many other posts are also available as a pretty, well-behaved ebook: On Web Development.

The Web Dev Report, issue #2, this time featuring a classic situation.

The Web Dev Report: Web developers needed for a website.
Transcript.
(Back in 2005.)
Guy 2:
How many web developers does it take to build a website?
Guy 1:
ā€¦?
Guy 2:
Two.
One to build the tables. Another one to calculate the values of the colspan and rowspan attributes.
Guy 1 and Guy 2:
Muahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Was this useful or interesting? Share (toot) this post, or maybe treat me to a coffee.Ā Thanks!

About Me

Jens Oliver Meiert, on September 30, 2021.

Iā€™m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and Iā€™m a frontend engineering leader and tech author/publisher. Iā€™ve worked as a technical lead for companies like Google and as an engineering manager for companies like Miro, Iā€™m close to W3C and WHATWG, and I write and review books for Oā€™Reilly and FrontendĀ Dogma.

I love trying things, not only in web development (and engineering management), but also in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my views andĀ experiences.

If you want to do me a favor, interpret charitably (I speak three languages, and they may collide), yet still be critical and give feedback for me to learn and improve. ThankĀ you!

Comments (Closed)

  1. On November 25, 2008, 21:02 CET, Duluoz said:

    Oh thank God developing large sites with tables was before my time! Funny stuff!

  2. On November 25, 2008, 21:54 CET, Harry Roberts said:

    @Duluozā€”same here! Although I did have to build a HTML email last week. I was nearly sick.

  3. On November 25, 2008, 21:57 CET, Kroc Camen said:

    You know your code is messy when your table recursion crashes the browser.

  4. On November 25, 2008, 23:35 CET, Jens Nedal said:

    Oh the times, when browser performance was so laggy, and all because of the underlying (X)HTML structure.

  5. On November 26, 2008, 0:45 CET, Steffen said:

    Back in 2005? I wonder if Guy 1+2 are still laughing in 2008 or if they are too busy writing articles about equal column heights in column layouts.
    Apart from the validity of the table layout approach: My feeling is that even without table layouts there are still too much (common) problems that waste more time than necessary of more than 2 web developers in software projects.

  6. On November 26, 2008, 11:29 CET, Ash said:

    I looked at an employers website in the interview a few years ago and it never stopped loadingā€¦ which i thought was weirdā€¦ the web guy said heā€™d ‘heard of CSSā€™ when i mentioned it as one of my skillsā€¦ my head said something along the lines of frame two of the cartoonā€¦

  7. On November 28, 2008, 9:27 CET, Jens Oliver Meiert said:

    I knew everyone would love to discuss tables šŸ˜‚

  8. On November 30, 2008, 22:42 CET, Paul@Green Home said:

    Classic stuff. I thought this was going to be a joke about web dev. clients to start with.

  9. On December 30, 2008, 17:25 CET, Amber said:

    Although we have all of the wonderful features now for web designing backed with teams of people to allow a single person to drag and drop features they wish to have on their siteā€¦too much has changed to me. I almost miss the simplicity of the basic header|paragraph structure. Although it was nice to mature from the webskins of 98′. Excellent mark-up*. I enjoy the sites that Keep It Simple