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The self-hating web developer

joequery.me

101–110 of 214 posts

Re: The self-hating web developer

#101
The motivation behind developers dissing each other for their chosen field of work and their tools is absolutely puzzling, and it does real harm. Nobody would assert that printf("hello world!"); epitomizes systems programming, yet print($foo); is apparently considered synonymous with web development and lowest of the unspeakable arts.

Inept programming can be found all over the place. A newbie program doesn't magically get better because it's a kernel module written in C, anymore than it gets magically worse because it's a guestbook script written in PHP. The astonishing thing is this goes arbitrarily deep in the tech taxonomy tree: Ruby on Rails is considered a pro-grade environment, even though it's partially focused on mitigating newbie mistakes. PHP is considered a beginner-grade toy, despite the comparatively vast expertise one needs to write correct code in it. The web is a stupendously complex thing to write software for, there is nothing low or trivial about it.

When I was relatively young in the late nineties, my contact to other programmers was extremely limited. I was working at an ad agency, where I developed and maintained an in-house DSL for web programming. When the second full-time developer was hired, their first move was to diss pretty much everything I had made. "How can you write a web framework without regex?" "A document-based database? Abomination!" "A stateless server? That's crazy, why didn't you write a persistent app server?" "A real programmer uses Emacs"

Over the years, this mode of interaction still exists. Most people avoid it by hanging out only with developers who use the exact same stack they do, and when the winds shift they all switch together and pretend the old tech never existed. We had the chance, as a programmer subculture, to leave this ridiculous and arbitrary in-group/out-group stuff behind, but instead we embraced it and turned it up to eleven.

Re: The self-hating web developer

#102
It's sad some people tend to think as being a programmer is all about programming. You have to focus on the goal: the product that you are creating. Then you decide what's the best tool to make this product, and it doesn't matter what field that belongs to. If it helps you make the product you want to make, then it's good.

Of course you might get bored creating a certain product at some point because it's become too easy for you. But as long as you don't reach that point, don't rush yourself. I would say.

Re: The self-hating web developer

#103
post #6

Yeah, modern web development is actually really fucking hard mainly because you have to know so many different things. To build an application from scratch, and do it well, you have to have deep knowledge of, let's see... * At least one server side language * Probably a server side framework * HTML * CSS * Maybe a preprocessor language like SASS or CoffeeScript * SQL * HTTP * Probably a SCM like Git * At least one se…

Some people argue web developers have it harder than iOS developers. In fact, good full-stack web developers arguably need learn more about technologies in a faster period of time than many other specialties within software. Why? Because the web, and the skills needed to make a competitive web app, evolve extremely quickly. Just on the Javascript side, in one year, you're learning Prototype or jQuery, the next year y…

One day its SQL, the other day its NoSQL. One day its Bootstrap, next day its material design.

I think you've been spending too much time in the SV echo chamber if you think those two examples are pertinent.

Re: The self-hating web developer

#104
post #57
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, I have a hard time believing that the misanthropic commenters on r/programming are major opensource contributors. The most prolific programmers simply don't have time to waste on comment threads.

"Of course, I'd also suggest that whoever was the genius who thought it was a good idea to read things ONE F★CKING BYTE AT A TIME with system calls for each byte should be retroactively aborted. Who the f★ck does idiotic things like that? How did they not die as babies, considering that they were likely too stupid to find a tit to suck on?" - Linus Torvalds, principal author of the Linux kernel

It's roughly put, but I sometimes wonder how people who appear to be doing really dumb things _did_ make it to adulthood....

Re: The self-hating web developer

#105

For all of those who, like the OP, believe web dev isn't real programming: - it is - uploading WordPress isn't web development I worked in embedded systems for a few years, and let me tell you, the quality of people is exactly the same as in web dev. They do pointer arithmetic all the time (way too much), we pass functions to functions all the time (way too much). They use ancient compilers and tools, we invent a new…

"uploading WordPress isn't web development" Sure it is. I know people who make a living at setting up Wordpress. They do it very well, and they work hard at it. They do design work that I cannot hope to match. And they do it all without writing any more code than some HTML and CSS. I'm not going to insult them by saying that they are not developing web sites. They absolutely are. Coders do not own the label of "web d…

You're pointing at 2 different things. Uploading Wordpress vs developing custom themes.

Uploading Wordpress, using standard themes and installing plugins isn't development, it's admin.

On the other hand, building custom themes or writing custom plugins is web development.

Re: The self-hating web developer

#106
post #98

I find web developers in general more knowledgeable. Sure they are not working in low level programming, but those that are working in low level programming often don't know what DNS, FTP or SQL is. Remember that those who work in low level programming had nothing to do with writing the language or building the compilers. They just got a degree and started working.

but those that are working in low level programming often don't know what DNS, FTP or SQL is

That's a very baffling statement that doesn't reflect any of my experiences (I don't think you realize just how big FTP is/was). How are you defining "low-level programmer" here?

Re: The self-hating web developer

#107

For all of those who, like the OP, believe web dev isn't real programming: - it is - uploading WordPress isn't web development I worked in embedded systems for a few years, and let me tell you, the quality of people is exactly the same as in web dev. They do pointer arithmetic all the time (way too much), we pass functions to functions all the time (way too much). They use ancient compilers and tools, we invent a new…

"uploading WordPress isn't web development" Sure it is. I know people who make a living at setting up Wordpress. They do it very well, and they work hard at it. They do design work that I cannot hope to match. And they do it all without writing any more code than some HTML and CSS. I'm not going to insult them by saying that they are not developing web sites. They absolutely are. Coders do not own the label of "web d…

You are right, or course, in terms of semantic politeness. The OP is, however, referring to the difference between say a ruby developer versus someone who just writes html and css. If both are within the category of web developers, what are some names to distinguish the two?

Re: The self-hating web developer

#108
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think its a double-edged sword. On one hand, it does have the disastrous effects described in the article. On the other, those kind of comments from some FP programmers did turn my attention to FP languages. Turns out, there is this amazing group of people that are trying to build an entire ecosystem that stands on solid mathematical foundations. That was really exciting stuff for me. For years I've been watching o…

Haskell us perfectly fine to start with. It's just Haskell + zsh + git + archlinux + vim + cool-tech aren't things you should learn all at once. Heck, 12 years in, and I'm still lot fluent in all of those. We can still tell people about cool stuff, just encourage them to take one step at a time, in their own time.

Haskell may not be the wisest language to start with. It's different from almost everything out there.

Re: The self-hating web developer

#109
I like web development but have to admit I do look down a little on people who are able only to click some buttons and get WordPress running and then people consider them "programmers".

Likewise, people who are able to drag some stuff around in MS Access and are considered "programers".

It's not necessarily the amount of skill and effort involved (although admittedly that is part of it), it's the fact that, in my experience, soon enough these "click and drag" type systems usually break. When they do, the button clickers often don't have the skills to fix them. This is, in my opinion, the refining fire that separates "programmers" from "Next" clicking hacks. And often it would have been, in total, more efficient just to learn a bit of real programming in the first place rather than to fix the messes created by "easy" systems. I'm not complaining because I've made money fixing problems button clicking "programmers" created but couldn't fix. In MS Access, in WordPress, in Sharepoint, in Lotus Approach, etc.

It's better to take the time to learn how to code. PHP isn't my preference, there are better languages, but it's probably OK. Oh, and I don't worry about what people think of web developers. Their opinion doesn't really matter. But button clickers as opposed to coders... there is a real difference and it shows up soon enough.

Last point, OP messed up by ordering a bunch of books. He should have ordered just one. Don't try to drink from a fire hose. You will get knocked on your ass and all wet, and you won't even get your drink. Also, besides learning, you have to keep producing. Even if it's boring and some people don't respect you. A certain level of income take precedence to learning. If you don't have it then the learning is done because you can't fund it. So... priorities.

Re: The self-hating web developer

#110

For all of those who, like the OP, believe web dev isn't real programming: - it is - uploading WordPress isn't web development I worked in embedded systems for a few years, and let me tell you, the quality of people is exactly the same as in web dev. They do pointer arithmetic all the time (way too much), we pass functions to functions all the time (way too much). They use ancient compilers and tools, we invent a new…

The problem is that "web dev" covers such a wide range of roles. "Uploading WordPress isn't web development" is a subjective statement, and a lot of people who can only do CSS and very minor code copy/paste/tweak get to call themselves "web devs." This OP sounds like someone who got in a rung or two above "uploads WordPress" and has convinced himself he needs to transform into a full-fledged ninja programmer in order…

> lot of people who can only do CSS

I appreciate people "who can only do CSS".

CSS is underrated skill but experienced CSS developer has to know about:

- every browser quirk possible.

- various standard hacks to workaround these quirks

- preprocessors like Sass or Less

- tons of completely non-logical CSS rules (eg: `margin: auto` will center only horizontally but not vertically )

- methodologies like BEM, OCSS or SMACSS

- CSS frameworks like Bootstrap or Foundation

- CSS specifity, z-index stacking rules etc.

- responsive web development

- basic JavaScript also can be helpful

etc.

And he/she has to be good at communication with graphic/ux designers and be super patient (`2px left, please`, `change color for 3% brighter, please`, `slow down this transition and insert 2px border` etc.) And good eye for details also is needed.

So I don't think that someone "who can only do CSS" is worse than programmer. I think the opposite is true: programming is pretty damn easy comparing to sitting all day and trying to randomly tweak CSSes to make website look as it was designed by graphic/ux designers.

This is the reason I hate writing CSS. I like programming though. Because programming it's a looot easier.

Programming is logical. You tell computer what to do and computer does it. If it does not, you debug and eventually you win. CSS is not logical so IMHO it's harder.

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