3 ms·

I agree, but would point out that this list seems a bit more oriented to the type of folks doing web application development, rather than web publishing. Not ev

I agree, but would point out that this list seems a bit more oriented to the type of folks doing web application development, rather than web publishing. Not every site or job demands knowledge of the latest tools or techniques. Is it good to know they exist? Sure, but I wouldn't count someone out who does't actively use git or only knows JS by way of jQuery. One thing I would add to the list is a conceptual understanding of how a web page gets to someone's screen. E.g., how a webserver works, what headers are, how DNS works, caching, general CMS principles, etc. Perhaps that's implicit in the list, but I've been amazed sometimes by other frontend folks that didn't have knowledge of some key piece of that pipeline.

billpatrianakos 15y ago
The lines are starting to blur though. These days a good generalist with a penchant for the front end is probably more desirable than a pure frot end design person. If you're working with teams then version control is mandatory. JavaScript is now being used far more beyond just DOM manipulation, SASS/LESS/Stylus are, for many, required knowledge even if you're just doing static sites, etc. Point being, the lines are blurring the the skillets are breeding with each other creating a need for generalists more than ever. You're right when you say this is probably more useful for web apps than static sites but even static sites are starting to become more app-ish. More emphasis is (rightly) being placed on things like server optimization and load times which requires just a bit more knowledge of what's going on in the backend than before. Take HTML5 Boilerplate for example. Their Apache .htaccess file is something that the front end guys should understand and even if you're working alone buildin a static site you should start getting into setting up those rules correctly and putting a lot of that stuff into Apache's httpd.conf. Basic CMS knowledge is required. Everyone ends up working with a CMS eventually unless your entire career is based on building single page static sites editable in Dreamweaver alone or something. Then there's new toys like Jekyll. Jekyll and its beginner friendly cousin Octopress require you to know a few things about the backend too and in fact require most of the skills the article describes. So you're right to a point but it looks like as we move forward even web publishing will start to resemble web app development more and more as far as tools and workflows go. Gosh, even FTP is starting to go the way of Gopher. I hope I see the day that even shared hosts start allowing and encouraging SSH usage over FTP as the norm almost like MediaTemple does.
- jenius 15y ago
  Totally agree here. While I hope youre right, it's very tough to push these ideas right now. I've been trying to teach advanced front end technologies to front end guys for a while (haml & ruby logic, sass & sassscript, controlling and compiling files and projects through command line), and generally people have a very tough time picking it up because as "front end devs" they don't really know any programming beyond a bit of jquery. The popularity of twitter bootstrap pretty much proves your point. With better technology (like sass), it would not be difficult to make a framework that's smarter and more flexible than bootstrap. I made one, it is better, and I have been writing about it and talking about it as much as I can, but NOBODY CARES. Bundle install? Mixin functions that take parameters instead of putting a class on an html element? No curly brackets or angle brackets? Too difficult, too different. Front end devs don't get it. What they do get is "here, paste this stylesheet into the head and everything will automatically look nice." - and now bootstrap is the most watched repo on github. As much as it drives me crazy right now, I'm hoping that eventually people will start to realize that a truly efficient front end dev needs to know how to program. If you pit me against a dev who is using straight html and css, making the same website, I bet I could double their speed. That counts for a lot... especially when someone's on payroll.
  - robin_reala 15y ago
    In my experience Bootstrap is a saviour to backend debs who don't want to think about the front end if they can get away with it, not something that particularly interests FEDs.
  - mark_story 15y ago
    It sounds like you're confusing front-end developer with designer who knows a bit of javascript. I think there is a burgeoning group of developers who build javascript/client side applications. These people aren't really designers, and have programming chops.

billpatrianakos 15y ago

The lines are starting to blur though. These days a good generalist with a penchant for the front end is probably more desirable than a pure frot end design person. If you're working with teams then version control is mandatory. JavaScript is now being used far more beyond just DOM manipulation, SASS/LESS/Stylus are, for many, required knowledge even if you're just doing static sites, etc. Point being, the lines are blurring the the skillets are breeding with each other creating a need for generalists more than ever. You're right when you say this is probably more useful for web apps than static sites but even static sites are starting to become more app-ish. More emphasis is (rightly) being placed on things like server optimization and load times which requires just a bit more knowledge of what's going on in the backend than before. Take HTML5 Boilerplate for example. Their Apache .htaccess file is something that the front end guys should understand and even if you're working alone buildin a static site you should start getting into setting up those rules correctly and putting a lot of that stuff into Apache's httpd.conf. Basic CMS knowledge is required. Everyone ends up working with a CMS eventually unless your entire career is based on building single page static sites editable in Dreamweaver alone or something. Then there's new toys like Jekyll. Jekyll and its beginner friendly cousin Octopress require you to know a few things about the backend too and in fact require most of the skills the article describes. So you're right to a point but it looks like as we move forward even web publishing will start to resemble web app development more and more as far as tools and workflows go. Gosh, even FTP is starting to go the way of Gopher. I hope I see the day that even shared hosts start allowing and encouraging SSH usage over FTP as the norm almost like MediaTemple does.

jenius 15y ago
Totally agree here. While I hope youre right, it's very tough to push these ideas right now. I've been trying to teach advanced front end technologies to front end guys for a while (haml & ruby logic, sass & sassscript, controlling and compiling files and projects through command line), and generally people have a very tough time picking it up because as "front end devs" they don't really know any programming beyond a bit of jquery. The popularity of twitter bootstrap pretty much proves your point. With better technology (like sass), it would not be difficult to make a framework that's smarter and more flexible than bootstrap. I made one, it is better, and I have been writing about it and talking about it as much as I can, but NOBODY CARES. Bundle install? Mixin functions that take parameters instead of putting a class on an html element? No curly brackets or angle brackets? Too difficult, too different. Front end devs don't get it. What they do get is "here, paste this stylesheet into the head and everything will automatically look nice." - and now bootstrap is the most watched repo on github. As much as it drives me crazy right now, I'm hoping that eventually people will start to realize that a truly efficient front end dev needs to know how to program. If you pit me against a dev who is using straight html and css, making the same website, I bet I could double their speed. That counts for a lot... especially when someone's on payroll.
- robin_reala 15y ago
  In my experience Bootstrap is a saviour to backend debs who don't want to think about the front end if they can get away with it, not something that particularly interests FEDs.
- mark_story 15y ago
  It sounds like you're confusing front-end developer with designer who knows a bit of javascript. I think there is a burgeoning group of developers who build javascript/client side applications. These people aren't really designers, and have programming chops.