A developers relevance

The landscape is always changing. Acronyms come and go like fashion nowadays it seems.

How does a budding developer solidify himself in such conditions?

Fortunately, having a solid foundation in HTML/CSS/javascript allows you to accomplish a lot with a site that needs to be built. I remember only knowing HTML at one point early on my career. this was fine until I had to make a change to one or more of the pages which was tedious in my tool of choice, MS Notepad. Find and Replace was a good friend to me during that time.

Then something wonderful happened, CSS came on the scene which allowed u to separate the look of elements in the page which had the obvious benefit of being able to make changes to the entire site at once. WooT. So I attacked that as fast as I did HTML in order to implement this new technology. The syntax is surprisingly simple then. now its in its 3rd iteration (more about this later).

I will admit I ignored javascript because of the implementation issues betwezen browsers during the "browser wars" era. thought I studied it I didnt need it until my present job. Most of what I do is relegated to basic processing of strings and so on, also if/else blocks that determine something based on a variable's value. Nothing too strenuous at all.

Somewhere some how though, I began to realize that armed with HTML & CSS even if I could design a template that didn't change other than the text, editing that text across even 20 pages would be tedious especially if they need to continuously change. What if I had 10 clients with sites ranging from 10 pages to 100 pages each? I would basically be stuck in a maintenance role and not get much new projects done.

I decided to look into database backed websites when I realized this is how the big boys did it. Create your template, style the interface or front end as it was called then and decide which aspects of it was going to be dynamic. Needless to say this opened up a whole new area of web development for me. So much so, I wasn't concerned as much with the look of the site as opposed to how it functioned. Programming this functionality was my main focus. Now I had to determine what platform most sites used and why.

I originally considered going with a MS based solution, you should know what MS stands for if you are reading this. Perhaps M$ makes more sense. Anywhoo that comment seems dated as Google becomes more and more prevalent and their stock well, I mean, it won't be long before...ah enough speculation and back to business. So I considered a MS solution but hosting costs were more expensive compared to Linux based servers so that was a deterrent. Also, I didn't want to run my stuff on any platform that wasn't open in many ways. MS is notorious for having their own standards that didn't really mesh with others and in fact does not allow others to play at all sometimes.

What was left was Linux based servers otherwise referred to as a LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) based solution. First it was cheaper to run at the time, the set up appeared to be quick, usually has an easy access to a web based control panel, and runs php natively and the database is there for your usage once its set up and you have specified your connection.

Fast forward to now (a few php/mysql/practical web database books) later... PHP is all grown up now and supports OOP like Java and C#. MySQL is at version 5 which includes things like stored procedures and all kinds of other doodads. Ruby on Rails is now on the scene and making major waves. And oddly an aspect of Javascript that manipulates the DOM called DHTML has now been reborn and reworked into javascript frameworks that give developers the ability to make the browser act more seamlessly like a desktop application. Not to mention perform Asynchronous requests with the server dubbed AJAX.

Old news? Yes but to an extent. I found out as a developer whats innovative is whats in demand and you better be prepared to learn new things or you won't be in demand for long.

I say this as I complete the 6th chapter of my Scriptaculous & Prototype book. Purchased in the midst of discussing new opportunities with new technology. Luckily I learn fast!

Till next time.