4 ms·

omg, this question is painful. HTML and CSS are skills that are worth your /time/. Forget the money. You can improve your /own/ life with HTML and CSS. The m

by pj 18y ago

omg, this question is painful. HTML and CSS are skills that are worth your /time/. Forget the money. You can improve your /own/ life with HTML and CSS. The more you know, the more powerful you are! Have you ever been approached by someone from the front end who said, "Man, it's hard to build this page the way I want it because the backend doesn't do XYZ?" and you look at them like, "figure it out!" You only do that because you can't relate to them. You don't know how hard it is to do a three column layout in CSS so you blow them off and think, "It's been done before go do it." But that's not the right approach. The right approach is to understand /why/ it's hard from the front-end so you can make your back-end more suitable to the front. Building complex systems is a conversation between layers. Data comes from the database, goes through the "backend" then gets displayed. At each of these levels, the more one knows about the other, the easier the dialog between the layers. So, OF COURSE it is worth a back-end developer's time to learn more about the front-end. It's also worth a front-end developers time to learn more about the backend. YES.

pxlpshr 18y ago
Very well put. A team is only hurting them self if designer|vs|engineer qualms and misunderstandings aren't managed. It's as equally important for the product to work, as it is for the consumer to understand. There are complexities on both ends.
mechanical_fish 18y ago
Amen. The right approach is to understand /why/ it's hard from the front-end so you can make your back-end more suitable to the front. I still don't know how to answer when people ask if I am a front-end or a back-end developer. I just don't get it. I used to think I could claim to be a back-end guy because I do know SQL, but I don't know how to make pretty mockups in Photoshop. But now it's apparent that knowing HTML and CSS and JS makes me a "front-end" developer in many people's eyes, so I've gone back to not knowing how to answer. It's like asking whether I walk primarily with my right leg or my left. I think the dichotomy broke completely when Ajax came on the scene. In earlier times it was possible to pretend that the division between client-side code and server-side code was aligned with the division between the presentation layer and the logic and persistence layers of your app. That alignment was never very clean (there are limits to what you can rearrange with CSS alone, and while JS can theoretically rearrange everything the result is liable to be slow and fragile and terrifying to behold, and obviously the needs of the interface designer need to drive the optimization of the back-end data store, etc.), but you could still pretend. The ever-increasing role of client-side JS makes that view of the world less tenable. Now some logic lives on the client as well as on the server, and Google Gears threatens to give the client persistent storage as well, and the interaction between client and server can potentially have a lot more moving parts, and a developer gains a big advantage by having a basic understanding of the entire stack.
Retric 18y ago
I disagree. It's useful to be able to do a full prototype so a superficial understanding is useful, but I don't think there is significant value really learning HTML / CSS. There is a huge body of information about which version's of which browsers work with which feature. This is one of those cases where specialization pays huge dividends and working with someone who keeps up with this field is really useful. Think of it like accounting it's useful to quickly learn the fundamentals, but knowing how to audit a fortune 500 company is overkill. PS: The problem with learning HTML / CSS / JavaScript is it's got a short shelf life. You can learn C and come back to it in 20 years but GUI side of things keeps evolving so unless you constantly keep up you are basically starting over when you come back in 5 years.
- anonyreliant 18y ago
  Our full prototype is earning revenue. Javascript is extending into desktop applications through Webkit and I'd say HTML/CSS/Javascript is the core GUI skillset for anyone who wants to work on next-gen cross platform applications. If you're working for other people be a specialist. If you're working for yourself you have to be a generalist. Very difficult to effectively manage and coordinate something you don't really understand.
alabut 18y ago
Here's a designer's take on why this is a great answer by pj - the html/css is the meeting ground between designers and programmers, so without a basic understanding goes a long way. Think of it this way - html by itself, even without css, is like the skeleton of a body. The programming (backend & javascript) is like the muscles that move stuff around and the css & visual design is the skin, makeup and clothes that define the style. It's a bit simplistic and ignores more advanced interaction design that can help define the skeleton in the first place, but it's a good shorthand for how designers and programmers make stuff, especially in early stages. So that's a hell yes to learning html/css. Learning web design means more than learning simply the toolkit to create those designs, it's also about developing an eye for what makes an attractive or usable interface, so learning whatever you can there should probably be a hobby that teaches you to appreciate good work. Try cruising the css gallery sites or smashingmagazine for examples.
- alabut 18y ago
  Oops, make that "so a basic understanding goes a long way".

by pj 18y ago

pxlpshr 18y ago

Very well put. A team is only hurting them self if designer|vs|engineer qualms and misunderstandings aren't managed. It's as equally important for the product to work, as it is for the consumer to understand. There are complexities on both ends.

mechanical_fish 18y ago

Amen. The right approach is to understand /why/ it's hard from the front-end so you can make your back-end more suitable to the front. I still don't know how to answer when people ask if I am a front-end or a back-end developer. I just don't get it. I used to think I could claim to be a back-end guy because I do know SQL, but I don't know how to make pretty mockups in Photoshop. But now it's apparent that knowing HTML and CSS and JS makes me a "front-end" developer in many people's eyes, so I've gone back to not knowing how to answer. It's like asking whether I walk primarily with my right leg or my left. I think the dichotomy broke completely when Ajax came on the scene. In earlier times it was possible to pretend that the division between client-side code and server-side code was aligned with the division between the presentation layer and the logic and persistence layers of your app. That alignment was never very clean (there are limits to what you can rearrange with CSS alone, and while JS can theoretically rearrange everything the result is liable to be slow and fragile and terrifying to behold, and obviously the needs of the interface designer need to drive the optimization of the back-end data store, etc.), but you could still pretend. The ever-increasing role of client-side JS makes that view of the world less tenable. Now some logic lives on the client as well as on the server, and Google Gears threatens to give the client persistent storage as well, and the interaction between client and server can potentially have a lot more moving parts, and a developer gains a big advantage by having a basic understanding of the entire stack.

Retric 18y ago

I disagree. It's useful to be able to do a full prototype so a superficial understanding is useful, but I don't think there is significant value really learning HTML / CSS. There is a huge body of information about which version's of which browsers work with which feature. This is one of those cases where specialization pays huge dividends and working with someone who keeps up with this field is really useful. Think of it like accounting it's useful to quickly learn the fundamentals, but knowing how to audit a fortune 500 company is overkill. PS: The problem with learning HTML / CSS / JavaScript is it's got a short shelf life. You can learn C and come back to it in 20 years but GUI side of things keeps evolving so unless you constantly keep up you are basically starting over when you come back in 5 years.

anonyreliant 18y ago
Our full prototype is earning revenue. Javascript is extending into desktop applications through Webkit and I'd say HTML/CSS/Javascript is the core GUI skillset for anyone who wants to work on next-gen cross platform applications. If you're working for other people be a specialist. If you're working for yourself you have to be a generalist. Very difficult to effectively manage and coordinate something you don't really understand.

alabut 18y ago

Here's a designer's take on why this is a great answer by pj - the html/css is the meeting ground between designers and programmers, so without a basic understanding goes a long way. Think of it this way - html by itself, even without css, is like the skeleton of a body. The programming (backend & javascript) is like the muscles that move stuff around and the css & visual design is the skin, makeup and clothes that define the style. It's a bit simplistic and ignores more advanced interaction design that can help define the skeleton in the first place, but it's a good shorthand for how designers and programmers make stuff, especially in early stages. So that's a hell yes to learning html/css. Learning web design means more than learning simply the toolkit to create those designs, it's also about developing an eye for what makes an attractive or usable interface, so learning whatever you can there should probably be a hobby that teaches you to appreciate good work. Try cruising the css gallery sites or smashingmagazine for examples.

alabut 18y ago
Oops, make that "so a basic understanding goes a long way".