If you are learning something new , be it a programming language, photography, driving a car – you name it, you get to learn the very basics first. And then you slowly move upwards the learning curve and start learning the best practices and pit falls. Finally you tend to master the art and bring your own ways of doing it.
In the same way, a web developer might evolve progressively in web development. What I think as the different stages in an web developer’s evolution are:
- HTML + <font> Stage - uses simple, plain HTML and the <font> and similar tags to design the site layout and look and feel.
- HTML + Inline CSS + In file JavaScripts stage- starts using Cascading Style Sheets to separate the content from style and a basic JavaScript to validate inputs. Heavily depends on prompt and message box for communicating with site user.
- HTML + External CSS + External JS stage - intermediate stage where the developers learns to separate the content from the functionality and design. But still often re invents the wheel, by avoiding to use language frameworks.
- HTML + CSS/JS Frameworks + AJAXified stage - has a wide knowledge about several web frameworks and using them in projects. Try to solve any problem using AJAX (even Hello World can’t escape!). Builds the site for high end browsers (Chrome, etc.) first and the fix it for the low end browsers (IE5, etc) .
- HTML 4.01 + Progressive Enhancement stage – builds the site for the low end browsers first and slowly introduce the enhancements (CSS, JS, etc.) in step by step. Always try to comply with the web standards. Puts the graceful degradation as important as the complete functionality of the site.
So, At what stage are you in?
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{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Stage 4
stage 4
Stage Five!
The difference between 4 and 5 isn’t just in the evolution of the web developer. It makes a big difference what kind of web development you are working on. Progressive enhancement is important in consumer sites, but in B2B and Business Web Applications, it’s not really that important.
in ‘enterprise’ web applications, I don’t think the web developers follow any standard at all. They target only one browser, mostly in IE family, with all the browser specific tags and hacks.
five…
… stage 6 : realizes that without back end dev skills he/she is designer
)
… stage 7 : discovers perl ( I know
… stage 8 : knee jerk reacts and picks up java
…. looks at php, ruby, etc.
@back end skill
yup! with out a back end skill, the web developer really can’t survive, unless he’s having other back end engineers in his team.
@PHP
IMO, you can replace HTML with PHP in all the above stages and it will still holds true.
Stage 5…
Framework Developer + W3C compliance + XHTML strict
Stage 5
stage 6 : w3c, wai compliant
stage 7 : various versions for various type of users (pc, smartphones, tablets, etc)
@stage 7 – that’s one important stage – addressing different devices and output formats.
Web DEVELOPERS are NOT just HTML/CSS coders.. just the opposite.
The learning steps you described are pretty correct in evolutionary learning sense, but web DEVELOPER is actually a PROGRAMMER.
DEVELOPER = PROGRAMMER (such as C++, Java, PHP, Python, Ruby)
WEB DESIGNER = HTML/CSS CODER (meaning HTML, CSS, JS, AJAX, JS Scripts implementation, Smarty, etc)
Nice read thou.
cheers,
dootzky
thanks.
Agree with your point regarding the title. I thought of using ‘designers’ instead ‘developers’, but the word ‘designer’ meant the people who DESIGN the page (a.k.a the Photoshop guys). That’s why I sticked to ‘web developers’.
What I can say is very nice and helpful as well as informative post…really help me very much more!! Thanks..