The self-hating web developer

Re:The self-hating web developer by hamburglar on Sunday July 19, 2015 @04:49AM (#9910517)

The problem is that "web dev" covers such a wide range of roles. "Uploading WordPress isn't web development" is a subjective statement, and a lot of people who can only do CSS and very minor code copy/paste/tweak get to call themselves "web devs." This OP sounds like someone who got in a rung or two above "uploads WordPress" and has convinced himself he needs to transform into a full-fledged ninja programmer in order to shed the image of "low level web dev." And he thinks the path to that goal is to pick something smart sounding, like kernel/crypto/driver hacker, and become it. Unfortunately, this is a bit like a kid who's taken one guitar lesson deciding his career plan is to become Eddie Van Halen.

But it doesn't matter. What he needs to understand is that there's absolutely no shame whatsoever in the "web dev" role precisely because it covers so many different levels of ability. He sees his own skills as lacking and therefore concludes that his title is a title of shame, whereas what he should be thinking about is the fact that a lot of real bad-ass coders share that title. Get better at what you do and what you're interested in, rather than chasing what you think sounds cool to others but you have no actual interest in.

OP, I know a guy who spent a couple of decades as a C/asm bad-ass and was recently forced to learn some HTML/CSS/JS in order to put a web front-end on a project. He's completely hooked and I don't think he's going back. There literally is no level of expertise implied by the term "web dev."

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Re:The self-hating web developer by nstart on Sunday July 19, 2015 @07:46AM (#9910884)

I feel sad for the OP because he found himself in a trap of "my title matters". It doesn't. The only question that mattered was "do I like what I do? Do I learn and can I learn more? And most importantly, is it feeding the family?". Getting yes to those three (always try to start with the last first) is all one ever needs. Do that, stand tall, be proud. And he had that but lost it by wondering what image he projected onto the world.

I'm angry that people throw these destructive opinions like " oh poo poo. X isn't real work" out in life because not everyone can be strong enough to not doubt themselves.

It's always a good thing to ask oneself if the thoughts one projects to the rest of the world can serve the purpose of raising the quality of someone's life.

If you read this OP, shake yourself. Write down on 3 papers,

I Must Be Happy

I Must Be Stable

I Must Keep Learning

And on your table paste a smaller note.

If you are always moving forward, then you have no reason to be unhappy with who you are today.

This may sound hokem mantraish "oh that's a nice sentiment" advice, but our minds are more malleable than we know. Just like you can feed it destructive thoughts and ruin the good in your life, you can do the opposite and it will work.

Good luck!

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The self-hating web developer by hex13 on Sunday July 19, 2015 @11:02AM (#9911382)

> lot of people who can only do CSS

I appreciate people "who can only do CSS".

CSS is underrated skill but experienced CSS developer has to know about:

- every browser quirk possible.

- various standard hacks to workaround these quirks

- preprocessors like Sass or Less

- tons of completely non-logical CSS rules (eg: `margin: auto` will center only horizontally but not vertically )

- methodologies like BEM, OCSS or SMACSS

- CSS frameworks like Bootstrap or Foundation

- CSS specifity, z-index stacking rules etc.

- responsive web development

- basic JavaScript also can be helpful

etc.

And he/she has to be good at communication with graphic/ux designers and be super patient (`2px left, please`, `change color for 3% brighter, please`, `slow down this transition and insert 2px border` etc.) And good eye for details also is needed.

So I don't think that someone "who can only do CSS" is worse than programmer. I think the opposite is true: programming is pretty damn easy comparing to sitting all day and trying to randomly tweak CSSes to make website look as it was designed by graphic/ux designers.

This is the reason I hate writing CSS. I like programming though. Because programming it's a looot easier.

Programming is logical. You tell computer what to do and computer does it. If it does not, you debug and eventually you win. CSS is not logical so IMHO it's harder.

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Re:The self-hating web developer by wwweston on Sunday July 19, 2015 @06:45PM (#9913150)

> - every browser quirk possible.

Hah. Not even possible anymore. Used to be before mobile, but as far as I can tell with mobile there is nobody who knows where all the bodies are buried.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/23142762/how-to-identify-...

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Re:The self-hating web developer by afarrell on Sunday July 19, 2015 @12:34PM (#9911698)

I agree. I've been trying for 6 years to form a coherent mental model of CSS that will let me look at a mockup and predict how it would be built.

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Re:The self-hating web developer by temo4ka on Sunday July 19, 2015 @12:47PM (#9911754)

Frontend development has always been hell. Everyone who has done it professionally knows this.

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Re:The self-hating web developer by novarac23 on Sunday July 19, 2015 @05:17AM (#9910571)

Totally agree about the part where people who can do CSS and HTML and know that '.htaccess' is the file to configure stuff for your Wordpress website call themselves "web devs". And I think people from the engineering world look at those people ( since there is a lot of those people) and put a lot of hate on that title. I know this for a fact because I know a few people that are calling themselves just that "web devs". And when ever I get into talking about anything more advanced then CSS and PHP if statments they get lost. Things like concurrency, microservices, encryption etc. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong to be that person, everybody starts there, but you need to evolve.

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