Yeah HTML/CSS/Javascript and PHP are some of the worst
possible examples of "coding"
So sad to see similar statements. I am the only one who loves working with
HTML and CSS? I wouldn't say I love PHP, sure it is not the best language out there, but it is not that bad. Unless you never bothered to check
out what's in PHP 5 (or 5.3) and keep going with PHP 4 code.
Don't dismiss HTML. Sure, it is not programming, but so often good programmers produce crap HTML maybe dismissing it as trivial and not
worth learning properly. However producing page in HTML and CSS involves a lot of similar activity: you evaluate the whole system (layout) you have to build, identify different parts, decide how to code them in proper, semantic way, avoiding unnecessary elements,
then style it all in CSS, maybe enhance with some Javascript. At the
same time you don't forget about progressive enhancement and graceful
degradation, cross browser support (this is less fun part).
I think the task of splitting that finished visual picture of design into
proper HTML structure and CSS decoration is the actual difficulty some
are facing, but mistakenly thinking thats the problem with CSS.
And now, with HTML5 on the doorstep and all the fun CSS3 allows front-end coding is even more exciting. My recent interest — client-side optimization
adds to this excitement. I learned about programming by reading code in some magazines (had no access to computers till my first year at university), now
I've been coding for 20 years, doing web work for 14, went all the way from first HTML being rendered in Netscape 2 through table layouts (oh those nested tables to get 1px border in IE and 1x1 GIFs…) to CSS3 layouts with fun effects rendered in WebKit nightly. I am equally well versed in both client side and server side development, but I'd say that even after all these years I still think client-side work is a lot of fun.
I initially was attracted to web because I enjoyed learning and trying a wide range of technologies: from working with graphics in Photoshop to setting up and configuring Apache. Still feeling the same.
> I am the only one who loves working with HTML and CSS?
No. HTML/CSS coding (or "markupping") is somewhat under-valued skill. Maybe that's because everybody and their neighbour's dog can do it (well, at least produce some results), but only those who really master it can see what's the huge difference between good and average/bad markup.
The only thing which really bothers me about web frontend coding, is huge quality variance of different runtime implementations (read: IE). Working for my own startup partially solves this problem, because I can decide whether I want to "support" these flawed implementations. To summarize, I want to solve real problems with proper tools, not artificial barriers caused by poor work of someone.
> I wouldn't say I love PHP, sure it is not the best language out there, but it is not that bad. Unless you never bothered to check out what's in PHP 5 (or 5.3) and keep going with PHP 4 code.
The issue is you rarely just get to work with your own code. There's lots of crappy crappy php out there, and while php5 is better, it's still not going to exile all that bad code away.
I hate HTML/CSS because of how much better it could be. Don't get me wrong it's nicer than other layout formats but it's still terribly designed for what it could be, not to mention implementation issues galore. Having said that, I love that there are people like yourself who love diving into this stuff.
I hate javascript because of broser compatibility issues. Web programming is fun for me if I can stay away from them, which is why I've recently started doing all my web programming in GWT.
Don't dismiss HTML. Sure, it is not programming, but so often good programmers produce crap HTML maybe dismissing it as trivial and not worth learning properly. However producing page in HTML and CSS involves a lot of similar activity: you evaluate the whole system (layout) you have to build, identify different parts, decide how to code them in proper, semantic way, avoiding unnecessary elements, then style it all in CSS, maybe enhance with some Javascript. At the same time you don't forget about progressive enhancement and graceful degradation, cross browser support (this is less fun part).
I think the task of splitting that finished visual picture of design into proper HTML structure and CSS decoration is the actual difficulty some are facing, but mistakenly thinking thats the problem with CSS.
And now, with HTML5 on the doorstep and all the fun CSS3 allows front-end coding is even more exciting. My recent interest — client-side optimization adds to this excitement. I learned about programming by reading code in some magazines (had no access to computers till my first year at university), now I've been coding for 20 years, doing web work for 14, went all the way from first HTML being rendered in Netscape 2 through table layouts (oh those nested tables to get 1px border in IE and 1x1 GIFs…) to CSS3 layouts with fun effects rendered in WebKit nightly. I am equally well versed in both client side and server side development, but I'd say that even after all these years I still think client-side work is a lot of fun.
I initially was attracted to web because I enjoyed learning and trying a wide range of technologies: from working with graphics in Photoshop to setting up and configuring Apache. Still feeling the same.