What is it be a web developer?

This piece is not about the history of the web, more about how the web grows and how new technologies constantly change the nature of what it means to be a web developer.

The Internet is growing (nothing new there with that statement). When a new idea or piece of technology springs up, developers are needed to be able to write software for it so that the new innovation gains ground and popularity.

The term 'web developer' came about because the web became the most sought after use for the Internet. When this happened people wanted to access information quickly and reliably. As a result web developers started programming on systems and servers that could dish out this information in a better way. With the integration of databases and server side coding, it allowed websites to move on from the stateless nature of HTML that is when Tim Berners-Lee developed it.

As time has moved on the web has gone from strength to strength. The other huge leap forward was advent of Javascript, a programming language that allowed coders to manipulate the pages that users saw in their browsers. This allowed websites to start behaving more the more traditional applications that ran on PCs and other computers. Of course it was only matter of time when the two started to inter mingle to give us even better applications and lo and behold Ajax sprang up when Microsoft created the XMLHttpRequest Object which allowed developers to send asynchronous requests to servers without the page reloading, thus enhancing even further the web experience. Ajax was designed to work with both XHTML and XML so that information could be injected and updated quickly and using less resources. Why reload the whole page when you only need to change the information in a single element? XML and the many web services created to use it allowed people to integrate information from website to another in a standardised way and crossed the divides that sprung up from the use of different systems.

The web didn't stop there over time, newer ideas and innovations continued to spring up all over the shop and applications became more and more complex. Social Media started to come in to the main stream and integration between web sites and applications became more and more common. MySpace and Facebook started to come to fruition and the web continued to make new ground with many people that had considered the web to be a fad with those 'young people'.

With the advent of Ajax it allowed applications to be made and resemble desktop programs, but there was a problem that became apparent as time went on. As with most javaScript functionality it had its problems with the numerous browsers that were available in the market. It was also quite code intensive and lots of testing was usually needed to make sure code with all browsers. That is where my topic pops up and that topic is jQuery. jQuery is a javaScript framework and has ironed out many of the problems that made javaScript such a pain to work with in the first place. DOM traversal, Ajax calls and element selection was made easier and standardised, no more cross compatibility testing to make sure things worked in firefox and IE. Debugging and development time has become vastly decreased, something of which, if you are a business can be passed on when you quote your customers for work.

So what is the future for the web. Well in my opinion, the future is becoming smaller. Well it is terms of the web. Mobile technology is becoming more and more common and I think that is where a lot of the future innovations will lie. Apple and Google have both moved into the mobile phone market and making a lot of people think about using their mobile device as the primary device for accessing the Internet. I myself have bought a mac mini to develop applications for iPhone as I want to keep with up with how the market is changing. I haven't actually created an app yet as I have too many commitments in other areas but the area between desktop applications and web applications are coming together quicker than ever, something of which I think will change the web and the Internet forever.

Becoming Mobile

It's been a while since I last added a post on to this blog, mainly because I have been very busy. I took on a full time PHP development role in September and left behind the world of search (for the time being) so that I can really push on with my career.

Anyway, down to business. I once thought that if I could master a web language then I could stick to that, work away day after day and life would be good. This was of course a feeling I had before I had actually learnt a language, before I had actually applied the skills in a real life situation. This is now such a silly notion to me now that I cannot believe that I actually thought that, but I guess that is the benefit of hindsight. This is even more astonishing when you consider what the Internet is and how the very nature of the beast requires you to be fluid, adaptive and progressive. This now brings on to my next point. Mobile Apps.

I really do not want to talk about what I am going to do with them (in this post) yet, but as I have actually bought a Mac Mini to develop iPhone Apps I am sure I am going to have some great fun in doing so (but more on this later). The main point of this post is to discuss why I made the decision to start building apps and continue on my learning spree that I have been on these last couple of years. The purchase of Mac while important, only served as a catalyst to get me thinking about this idea of linked learning (a phrase I have coined for this post) and what the effect of learning one skill helps/drives to you to learning another. If this makes no sense to you, then please let me explain:

Years ago I taught myself VBscript to run within the ASP environment. These scripts required the use of databases (new skill) which in turn required me to learn MS Access which in turn allowed me to create dynamic website. The need to learn how databases worked is the link I am referring to. The acquiring of knowledge for one subject turned into another. This is quite a short chain of events, mainly because I came to the whole ASP game quite late, .Net was coming in and I considered learning that for a while but ended up choosing PHP instead.

This is very much a stripped down version, but you will get the idea. The arrows are not literally a point from one skill to another, just merely a way of demonstrating movement. If this was to be made a graphical representation then it would be more like a flow chart and many of the skill sets would be interlinked.

PHP/MySQL Led to Programming Skills -> OOP Theory -> XML -> javaScript

MySQL -> Advanced Database SQL-> Stored Procedures

Apache (running on windows) -> Regular Expressions

javaScript -> DOM knowledge -> jQuery and other frameworks

Apache (Windows) -> Apache running on Linux

Apache (Linux) -> Linux web server setups -> Linux OS

Linux OS -> Application Languages (c++, python)

This is not an exhaustive list, I could be here forever doing that. I would also have to decide at which point does each skill set become its own subset. Also, just because one skill has fired another it doesn't mean that its parent subject has been exhausted. This is especially true with something like Linux, which is a huge topic and will take years to master. The problem with this linked learning is that fact you may spread yourself a little thin. While I can apply all the skills mentioned above I am always new things about each one. In addition, as the skills are inter-related, it generally (though not always) makes each new skill all that bit easier. For example, once I had learnt PHP, I found C++ much easier as many of the constructs are similar in nature.

Does this post apply to other areas, of course. You could apply it to just about anything, if you have a similar experience then please think back. It may help you to [re]discover skills and improve your career prospects or just help you find some direction.

So what's next on the learning radar? Well, like I mentioned at the beginning of the post it is now Apple Apps for iPod and iPhone, so please watch this space as I be reporting on this once my shiny new Mac mini arrives and I learn how to use OSX (oops another new skill), it's a good job I know how to use Linux as I hear they have many things in common ;-)