4 ms·

I often read these types of articles and wonder if the author considers that there are many flavours of what one might consider a "baseline". While I have clone

by tomkin 15y ago

I often read these types of articles and wonder if the author considers that there are many flavours of what one might consider a "baseline". While I have cloned a repo or two, I wouldn't say that it is a mainstay of how I evolve my abilities. I could interject all sorts of other expertise that I must use on a daily basis, where my lack of knowledge of such would render me unemployed. My skill set has evolved into what someone might call a designineer. Do I think everyone has to be a hybrid designer/developer to get the job done? Of course not. However, I wouldn't gather those skills and conflate that my skill set is necessary to getting the job done for someone else. It reminds me of the purist argument, where the evangelist will protest against web fonts, frameworks and the like. In 2001, if you were using CSS or JS you were not a purist. We can see that labels like these are to serve a purpose and it seems to be little more than an exercise in pedantry. At the end of the day, it's about providing quality work and getting the respect you deserve for your work.

rmurphey3 15y ago
The exact set of skills that one needs in order to do one's job will of course vary from person to person. What I have tried to point out in this post is that these topics are ones that anyone who calls themselves a front-end developer will need to be familiar with; if they are not familiar with them, then they risk being unable to keep up with the new information that is being shared about the front-end dev profession. This is based on my observations as much as my beliefs -- the set of things that you're expected to know in order to actively participate in the open-source front-end dev community is growing and changing, and this is my attempt to catalog those things in a way that I wish someone had done for me in the past.
- cgarvey 15y ago
  I found your list to be spot on. I certainly have my weaknesses from that list, but I'm familiar with everything you mentioned. I've been making Websites for around eight years, but really only the past four have I considered myself a front-end dev. It seems like every month there's a new fron-end trend that needs to be experimented with and learned. It gets a little daunting at times (hard to find the time, really) so I'm glad effort is being put in to lists like yours. I think it would be invaluable to a beginner.
- tomkin 15y ago
  > ...is that these topics are ones that anyone who calls themselves a front-end developer will need to be familiar with I don't know about that. With Github you profess that experience with git is necessary to take advantage of "the rich open-source community that has arisen around front-end development technologies" – but that's not true. Explain how downloading the repo as a zip is slower or less advantageous than opening Terminal and typing commands – while I'm already looking at the Github project page in the browser? How would a purely front-end developer tell the difference? > At the very least, you should be aware of tools like UglifyJS or Closure Compiler that will intelligently minify your code, and then concatenate those minified files prior to production. In what world? This grates on me because it looks to be little more than grandstanding. And I hate grandstanding. What if you're coding with RoR or any other language with a sophisticated asset pipeline? Ugh. 50% of the techniques/tools you mentioned could be replaced or removed entirely without much issue in any front-end developer position I've encountered – in fact, this rigid brick layering of relative experience may even be looked upon as negative to an employer as it's clear that you are unwavering. > that I wish someone had done for me in the past. I think it's great for you to catalog and share, but to declare your list as the defacto baseline is ridiculous and presumptuous. > Good front-end devs know to prefix any search engine query with mdn Yeah, not an ego-derived rant at all.
  - rmurphey3 15y ago
    I won't address the rest of your comments, but please note that I said "tools like UglifyJS or Closure Compiler" -- if the RoR asset pipeline is taking care of this for you, then good! The point is that good front-end devs should be aware of the need for tools that address the various high-level topics I listed -- I just mentioned some tools that fill those needs for me.

by tomkin 15y ago

rmurphey3 15y ago

The exact set of skills that one needs in order to do one's job will of course vary from person to person. What I have tried to point out in this post is that these topics are ones that anyone who calls themselves a front-end developer will need to be familiar with; if they are not familiar with them, then they risk being unable to keep up with the new information that is being shared about the front-end dev profession. This is based on my observations as much as my beliefs -- the set of things that you're expected to know in order to actively participate in the open-source front-end dev community is growing and changing, and this is my attempt to catalog those things in a way that I wish someone had done for me in the past.

cgarvey 15y ago
I found your list to be spot on. I certainly have my weaknesses from that list, but I'm familiar with everything you mentioned. I've been making Websites for around eight years, but really only the past four have I considered myself a front-end dev. It seems like every month there's a new fron-end trend that needs to be experimented with and learned. It gets a little daunting at times (hard to find the time, really) so I'm glad effort is being put in to lists like yours. I think it would be invaluable to a beginner.
tomkin 15y ago
> ...is that these topics are ones that anyone who calls themselves a front-end developer will need to be familiar with I don't know about that. With Github you profess that experience with git is necessary to take advantage of "the rich open-source community that has arisen around front-end development technologies" – but that's not true. Explain how downloading the repo as a zip is slower or less advantageous than opening Terminal and typing commands – while I'm already looking at the Github project page in the browser? How would a purely front-end developer tell the difference? > At the very least, you should be aware of tools like UglifyJS or Closure Compiler that will intelligently minify your code, and then concatenate those minified files prior to production. In what world? This grates on me because it looks to be little more than grandstanding. And I hate grandstanding. What if you're coding with RoR or any other language with a sophisticated asset pipeline? Ugh. 50% of the techniques/tools you mentioned could be replaced or removed entirely without much issue in any front-end developer position I've encountered – in fact, this rigid brick layering of relative experience may even be looked upon as negative to an employer as it's clear that you are unwavering. > that I wish someone had done for me in the past. I think it's great for you to catalog and share, but to declare your list as the defacto baseline is ridiculous and presumptuous. > Good front-end devs know to prefix any search engine query with mdn Yeah, not an ego-derived rant at all.
- rmurphey3 15y ago
  I won't address the rest of your comments, but please note that I said "tools like UglifyJS or Closure Compiler" -- if the RoR asset pipeline is taking care of this for you, then good! The point is that good front-end devs should be aware of the need for tools that address the various high-level topics I listed -- I just mentioned some tools that fill those needs for me.