I thought this might be an interesting piece to put here on Create (rather than Crunch) for those design-types.
In fact, this might be a generally good resource to pass around your office or organization about “web developers” in general. As you well know, web developers aren’t web designers.
Sometimes there’s a merging of the two in a specific “rockstar” genius, but typically not.
Here’s a list of of what a web developer is and isn’t. Go on, send this to someone who “needs” to know…
What a Web Developer Is:
- A master of at least 1-2 web languages. Preferably HTML, CSS to start.
- A practicer of web standards, semantics and validation. Sorry, but if you can’t take the 2 seconds to validate your HTML in one standard or another (unless there’s a good reason not to) you’re just not a real (good) developer. Same goes for browser compatibility. Unvalidated CSS is acceptable if it’s due to CSS3 techniques.
- Learner of the art of graceful degradation. Not all sites should look the same in every browser. That’s ok.
- A back-end programmer or front-end developer. Developer and programmer can be interchangeable, but I personally refer to the front-end as developing, and the back-end as programming.
- Someone who can work around all programming languages – even if they don’t know the language or have never seen it before.
- Adaptable and able to learn a framework or the basics of another similar language in just a few hours.
- An improver – every site’s code should be better and cleaner than the last.
- Able to provide in-code SEO for no extra cost.
- As important as the designer. A lot of normal clients don’t realize this and will pay big money for a designer, yet skimp on the coding.
- A business person. They are very knowledgeable about what they’re doing. They’re professional. Their business is as much of a business as yours.
- Money-making. We’re in business to make money doing something we love. There’s no shame in that, unlike what you hear these days about “greedy” business people. Without “greedy” business people, would there be jobs?
What a Web Developer Isn’t:
- A designer. That being said, the developer should know the basic principles of design, the differences between serif and sans-serif and basic color theory and typography.
- A consultant. I get lots of questions from regular clients about marketing, SEO and other web-related, but non-development related issues.
- All knowing. We can recreate your PSDs, but we can’t possibly know you want A to move, B to roll and C to disappear if you don’t inform us in some way.
- A marketer. Even though a web developer should know basic principles (and must know if they run their own business anyways), web developers probably aren’t the best to go to for marketing work.
- A male, fat, in PJ’s, a geek, a gamer, lazy, weird looking or any other of those wonderful stereotypes we come across. Of course, you could be any one of those things and still be a web developer, but the majority of us are actually good looking, clean and hard-working.
- A ninja or a rockstar…how did those descriptions become so popular??
- Infinite-lingual. There’s simply too many web languages out there for us to know every one well.
- Cheap. While there may be people in India charging $1 an hour (yes I’ve seen that more than once), you’re not going to get that cheap with a real developer (count on $50+). If you knew how many clients came to us complaining how terrible the <$30 an hour developer did or how many times we’ve had to fix that developer’s mistakes (for more than what they would’ve paid to just choose a better developer in the first place) you’d think twice about that.
- Available 24/7. Most developers keep normal business hours and aren’t available during weekends or nights.
- Scary. We know you don’t know the web like we do, and that’s ok. We won’t scare you with tech names, but instead will work hard to explain everything in normal speak.
And knowing is half the battle.
[HT: Amber]
Tom says
I’m a developer. I’ll be tattooing this on my back and showing people whenever they ask me questions.
John Saddington says
cool. get me one too.
Jared Erickson says
AHHH i’m stuck in the web..
John Saddington says
i know you are.
JayCaruso says
but the majority of us are actually good looking, clean
Hmm….my wife saw me looking at the 8Bit homepage and said, “They shouldn’t post their pictures.”
I KEED! I KEED!
John Saddington says
puahahahaha.
benrwoodard says
Sooooo then —> How much does a “web marketer” overlap with a “web developer”, could use another article I think.
John Saddington says
marketer doesn’t necessarily mean they can code…?
Nathan Edwards says
Amen…
I’m definitely closer to being a real/good developer than I ever will be a good designer. And it’s really annoying when I have to be both… just give me code.
John Saddington says
hehe!
Travis Fish says
I love this. This needed to be said. lol too many stereotypes.
John Saddington says
stereotypes are fun because they are true… 🙂
Andy Darnell says
Wait… Developers aren’t all knowing?!?
Great List. So True.
John Saddington says
you are all knowing.
Josh says
I am very much dealing with this now. I do some designing/developing on the side, and it’s tough doing both. I think I need to separate the design time from the development time, maybe that will keep me from doing too much at once.
John Saddington says
choose one. that’s what i try to do.
Nick Shoemaker says
And my world just got rocked. Again.
I know code. (developer) And I know marketing. What the deuce! 🙂
John Saddington says
marketing? hmmmmmm.
PhillipGibb says
based on that:
I am a bad developer wanting to be a good designer
or is it a
good designer forced to be a developer
Just not so good at being a rockstar
John Saddington says
rockstars suck.
Scott Magdalein says
Wow, I’m not a developer OR a designer, but I do work with a Ninja. Then again, I’m a Coxswain working with a Jedi, an Architect, a Lumberjack, a Spaceman, and an Oracle.
Creative job titles, FTW!
John Saddington says
your a cox.