7 reasons why web development is running in circles
Post on 19-Jun-2015
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7 Reasons why web development is
running in circles
Christian Heilmann | http://wait-till-i.com | http://twitter.com/codepo8
<head> 2008, London Hub, 15 minutes of fame
Web development is not professional.
We are working on this.
It is easy to blame the technology...
It is also easy to blame the web.
But when it comes down to it - we are to blame.
I found over the years several things to stand in our
way to be a professional entity in the market.
Turf Wars
Ego
Quick Win Tutorials
Antique Recommendations
Tickbox Standards
Status Quo Fetishism
Form Over Function
1 of 7:Turf warsInstead of working
together on solutions, people find their technology of choice...
1 of 7:Turf wars... and use this one
to solve any problem that might ever come up - regardless of consequences.
1 of 7:Turf warsPrejudices, truisms
and total failure to accept and understand other technologies prevent us from working together on the best solution.
1 of 7:Turf warsThis even reflects in
conferences.
1 of 7:Turf wars!There is no end to
end conference - we love to be in our own echo chambers.
2 of 7:EgoFighting the good
fight on the web is the most awesome thing we can do!
2 of 7:EgoThere is no way
anything that is already done can be good enough.
2 of 7:EgoIt is up to us and us
alone to show everybody else how things are done.
2 of 7:EgoThen we make sure
to give it a cool title, reap the applause and never re-visit it again.
2 of 7:EgoGeneric things are
never sexy.
2 of 7:EgoInstead we need to
solve our problem and then add hundreds of bells and whistles.
2 of 7:EgoWhen people find
problems with it they should fix them.
2 of 7:EgoAfter all we are too
busy to solve the next puzzle and get to the next stage.
2 of 7:Ego!Maybe one day you
will be the one who wins the internet!
3 of 7:Quick win
tutorials
Writing good tutorials is a real art.
3 of 7:Quick win
tutorials
You want to explain a certain methodology, technology or idea, but you also don’t want to overwhelm the reader.
3 of 7:Quick win
tutorials
The trap we fall into is give people easy solutions that are of mediocre quality.
3 of 7:Quick win
tutorials
Not because this is how people should build things but because this is easiest to explain.
3 of 7:Quick win
tutorials
Tutorials that are challenging or point out issues that might occur with a certain solution don’t get dugg.
3 of 7:Quick win
tutorials
If the tutorial doesn’t teach me in 5 minutes how to solve an issue the writer was bad.
3 of 7:Quick win
tutorials
3 of 7:Quick win
tutorials
Build your own CSS menu in 5 steps.
3 of 7:Quick win
tutorials
Styling menus with CSS.
3 of 7:Quick win
tutorials
Case Study: How we styled the menu of example.com.
3 of 7:Quick win
tutorials!
Menu systems that work and CSS technologies that help to build them.
4 of 7:Antique
Recommendations
The W3C is too slow.
4 of 7:Antique
Recommendations
HTML is not rich enough to build systems we expect to find.
4 of 7:Antique
Recommendations
Overly complex recommendations like the DOM don’t get revised.
4 of 7:Antique
Recommendations
Yet people love to fight to the death to defend them.
4 of 7:Antique
Recommendations!
Most of the time these are people that don’t get them or never really implemented them in real world scenarios.
5 of 7:Tickbox
standardsThe antique recommendations lead to people coming up with their own - binding - standards.
5 of 7:Tickbox
standardsWhich most of the time are borderline ludicrous.
5 of 7:Tickbox
standards“We like YUI grids but we cannot use them as the government accessibility standards disallow using CSS frameworks”
5 of 7:Tickbox
standards!The scariest thing about these kind of standards is that they are normally part of a 3 to 5 year plan that cannot be changed until the next 5 year period.
6 of 7:StatusQuo
fetishism
Maintaining the status quo in a company secures your job.
6 of 7:StatusQuo
fetishism
Making yourself indispensable means you cannot be made redundant.
6 of 7:StatusQuo
fetishism
This applies to subject matter expertise: “I am the CSS guy here”
6 of 7:StatusQuo
fetishism
But even more annoying it applies to ownership of the infrastructure.
6 of 7:StatusQuo
fetishism
Everything we built and bought over the last years works in Internet Explorer 6.
We cannot and will not upgrade or change that.
6 of 7:StatusQuo
fetishism
These are the statements and facts of work life that hold us back.
6 of 7:StatusQuo
fetishism!
Yet nobody tackles those - we are too busy building the perfect validating rounded corner solution.
7 of 7:Formover
function
No, I am not ranting about designers here.
7 of 7:Formover
function
I want to point out that we don’t lean towards learning real life examples...
7 of 7:Formover
function
Instead we lust for the next big inspirational piece.
7 of 7:Formover
function
Where are the tutorials how to style a CMS driven site that uses an enterprise system?
7 of 7:Formover
function
Where are the tutorials and talks about i18n and JavaScript?
7 of 7:Formover
function
Where are the showcases of how example.com was built?
7 of 7:Formover
function
I think it is high time to tell people how to deliver their day-to-day jobs faster, better and work for the people who take over from them.
Seven problems to have in mind before we post our
next piece or give our next talk.
I want to hear more from people from the trenches.
Thanks!
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