Learn HTML and CSS, then you'll know the full circle.
You need to know these things as a backend developer and as a programmer period.
Ask HN: Is it worth a back-end developer's time to get into web-design and HTML/CSS
31–40 of 42 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is it worth a back-end developer's time to get into web-design and HTML/CSS
#32omg, 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 b…
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.
Re: Ask HN: Is it worth a back-end developer's time to get into web-design and HTML/CSS
#33If I/he were to hire out the design stuff, where is the best place to find designers? Optimally I'd love to find a designer to partner with and work on projects as equals, but I'm willing to pay somebody to do the design if necessary. Any ballpark estimates on what reasonable web designers cost?
Re: Ask HN: Is it worth a back-end developer's time to get into web-design and HTML/CSS
#34Yes.
Re: Ask HN: Is it worth a back-end developer's time to get into web-design and HTML/CSS
#35I'll avoid me too and agree you should learn these front end technologies. That said, there seems to be a question of how and what underlying your post. I'm not a designer by any stretch of the imagination, still I hope this helps: == XHTML/CSS == 1. Learn basic HTML, understand what "semantic markup" means. I assume you know some HTML already. 2. To understand CSS, understand the box model. Understand inline and blo…
Nice outline. I agree with just about everything you have put forth here, but I think OP might want to either skip the graphics part for now and let someone who really knows it handle it, or learn that right after XHTML/CSS. JavaScript is going to be easy for him, better not to focus too hard on it and give time to what is going to be a little more challenging. As for learning XHTML/CSS, http://htmldog.com/ is an inc…
Another resource is the relatively new Web Standards Curriculum by Opera [http://www.opera.com/company/education/curriculum/]
Re: Ask HN: Is it worth a back-end developer's time to get into web-design and HTML/CSS
#36omg, 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 b…
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 d…
Oops, make that "so a basic understanding goes a long way".
Re: Ask HN: Is it worth a back-end developer's time to get into web-design and HTML/CSS
#37You need to learn it, but you don't need to do it this work.
First hire a designer.
Then hire a integration shop. Shops like psd2html are doing it for 100$-1k-2k$
So get a good designer and have a shop do the slicing work.
Then adjust it to your needs..
Re: Ask HN: Is it worth a back-end developer's time to get into web-design and HTML/CSS
#38In the ASP.NET community, we catch a lot of flak for the terrible sites that some developers have created with ASP.NET WebForms. That embarrassment is due exactly to developers choosing to hide behind the (leaky) WebForms abstraction and remain ignorant of the markup that their server-side code produces. I'd advise against emulating that failure case. If you're working on any code that's within one tier of the HTML/C…
I'll reach across the aisle here and admit that this happens in the Rails community as well. Reliance on scaffolding and generated code can be toxic and should be handled with care.
Re: Ask HN: Is it worth a back-end developer's time to get into web-design and HTML/CSS
#39Like a lot of people here said, I think it's important for you to learn html/css. At least enough to be able to do simple websites (or modify designs that you outsourced to integrate them in your website.)
For css try to use and understand a framework like blueprint or better even compass which is a meta-framework ported on sass (sass is to css what haml is to html). It will save you a lot of time by not having to deal so much with browser inconsistencies).
On the javascript side, read the book "Javascript the good parts" from Douglas Crockford, watch his videos and then play with jquery (it's very sweet and simple to use).
One last recommendation on the front end is to read Steve Souders "High performance websites". It's a quick easy read and highlights a lot of important considerations for the front end performance (like this you'll know for example that it's a good idea to ask designer to slice images that they use as background in the css file)...
It doesn't mean that you need to do everything by yourself (I hate doing css for example) but having a thorough understanding will help you chose the right web designer to work with and make sure that you both speak the same language.
Re: Ask HN: Is it worth a back-end developer's time to get into web-design and HTML/CSS
#40I was a backend guy and was faced with the same dilemma. I thankfully listened to the engineer in me (at that time we had our UI work contracted out and was not shaping up well).
It took a while to get a good grip of HTML, CSS and JS. They are the tripod on which today's web UI is balanced. In the end I think it was the right decision to learn it all!
Moreover if no core team member knows UI - then either get one or you become one, becoz sooner than later you will repent outsourcing it fully.