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Webdev is more like a trade than a science; you benefit more from remembering a large body of facts and details that comes with experience. There's no theory to

Webdev is more like a trade than a science; you benefit more from remembering a large body of facts and details that comes with experience. There's no theory to learn, you just have to get practise in things like databases, browsers, HTTP, frameworks, etc. This is probably why the author is struggling. This is a real world industry tackling real world problems. It is not the neat and cut world of science research.

LifeIsBio 6y ago
> It is not the neat and cut world of science research. You had me up until this last sentence. Everything I've experienced in science research is the opposite of neat or clean cut. Actually, I think I do my best programming and debugging with a treat it like a science experiment.
- WilliamEdward 6y ago
  I don't have any experience in scientific research, so that's a fair justification.
SaxonRobber 6y ago
Spoken like a bootcamp luddite
seer 6y ago
On the contrary, learning the fundamentals of CS has made me a much better dev, more so than any fact or tidbit. Its a testament to the awesomeness of the web however that so so many people even without any formal training can go about creating value. You _can_ be a webdev tradesman, fixing things till it works, kinda, or you can delve into the fundamentals and be much more productive. But you don’t have to and I think thats awesome. For example I still remember that conference that introduced Ruby on Rails to the world so many years ago. Most webdevs did not know there was an underlying theory and standard (REST) that can be used to make web apis bearable! After rails, we kinda figured huh, so this RFC for the web was sitting there all those years gathering dust and only weirdos and graybeards talked about it. But it was actually very very useful.
- WilliamEdward 6y ago
  Good points though I considered REST to be more like best practises than theory. One could see it either way i think.
  - corebit 6y ago
    When 99% of people say "REST" what they mean is "RESTful" in that its a ball of JSON garbage. That's just a trade and 99% of people are in that bucket. That last 1% actually have read the OG paper and when they say REST they mean REST and its real theory.

LifeIsBio 6y ago

> It is not the neat and cut world of science research. You had me up until this last sentence. Everything I've experienced in science research is the opposite of neat or clean cut. Actually, I think I do my best programming and debugging with a treat it like a science experiment.

WilliamEdward 6y ago
I don't have any experience in scientific research, so that's a fair justification.

SaxonRobber 6y ago

Spoken like a bootcamp luddite

seer 6y ago

On the contrary, learning the fundamentals of CS has made me a much better dev, more so than any fact or tidbit. Its a testament to the awesomeness of the web however that so so many people even without any formal training can go about creating value. You _can_ be a webdev tradesman, fixing things till it works, kinda, or you can delve into the fundamentals and be much more productive. But you don’t have to and I think thats awesome. For example I still remember that conference that introduced Ruby on Rails to the world so many years ago. Most webdevs did not know there was an underlying theory and standard (REST) that can be used to make web apis bearable! After rails, we kinda figured huh, so this RFC for the web was sitting there all those years gathering dust and only weirdos and graybeards talked about it. But it was actually very very useful.

WilliamEdward 6y ago
Good points though I considered REST to be more like best practises than theory. One could see it either way i think.
- corebit 6y ago
  When 99% of people say "REST" what they mean is "RESTful" in that its a ball of JSON garbage. That's just a trade and 99% of people are in that bucket. That last 1% actually have read the OG paper and when they say REST they mean REST and its real theory.