If you look at a thread I posted in this very forum two days ago (http://www.webmaster-talk.com/html-f...od-laugh.html), you'll see people talking about how a particular fly-by-night scammer ripped a friend off with the most horrible markup you've ever seen, and lots of people who code well saying this has got to be illegal! It's fraud, or robbery, or something like that. And a legal scholar corrected us in our folly.

ForestCroce had a really good point that we have web standards, but not web professional standards. Anyone can call themselves a designer, a coder, a developer (in my day it was programmer!) or anything they'd like. But like Dave Chappelle points out, I can't just dress up like a cop and go around beating people up.

This makes me wonder, if there was some kind of checklist of skills or attitudes or anything at all that qualifies someone as a web developer, what would those be? For example, our padawan friend Dan writes better code and has better professional ethics. How does he know when he's ready to make the leap?

(And for the record, I'm the lousiest coder in the room, and will never be charging anyone for my services as such. But I help friends for free, and I think this thread could turn into a great checklist of what I can tell them to look for when they think about hiring someone for web design.)

I think that to really class yourself as a web developer you should have theoretical and practical knowledge of the following

• XHTML - Using correct semantics ofcourse
• CSS
• JavaScript
• Atleast 1 Server Side Scripting Language
• Document Construction
• Accessibility Issues
• The ability to write a site, from scratch using nothing but a plain text editor and a browser (and a graphics app if needs be)
• Knowledge of Data Formats

extra credit for

• Knowledge of Databases including Normalisation
• Data Structures
• Extra Programming Experiance

That would all be a good start.

Jamie

Simply put, when the code/designs I created were better than the majority of what I was seeing, I knew I was a designer/coder.

When I could teach others, I knew I was a designer/coder.

And when I could piss people off because what I was doing was so unique, I really knew I was a designer/coder.

me being dan.. whos ethical *blush* am quite pleased with the nice things Johns been saying, and have some quite strong beliefs in how the web should run, and tech businesses and cant wait to be able to run my own!

Well, i personally, when im trying to big my self up to my popus annouying "flash artist" of a friend im a webhost/web design/coder/programmer and i would like to think i am now getting a good grip on xhtml/css/php and am now i think at a reasonable level.

but i wont at the moment i wont take on any paid work, for a few reasons.

* I dont think i have the time to commit to it as on top of my mass of course work (all due in about 3 weeks before the summer) and that i am now developing a local charities website (my current version http://calm.dansgalaxy.co.uk offical site http://calmcharity.org) i dont think i could put the time in.)

* i seem to have no skills with design and can only really do basic graphic work, and dont seem to (yet) have the nack of knocking up gd designs with css like some people can.

* i would want to so confident with the lanaguages and my own ability to do the project that i could sit and just do it, with out having to think a tremadous amount about it.


im just checking against jamies list now...

well i would like to think i have a extensive knowledge of xhtml and now almost all of my pages validate as XHTML 1.1 strict

i know quite a bit of css (i hope) but as i said above have minumal skills with design and getting it to work in all browsers.

javascript: well i used to use javascript all the time... for really crappy pages, but now i have moved away quite alot from using it as i was (often) advaised at how it should be avoided as much as possible.
i know a very limited to basic commands, but if i need it i can and do either find out to do it in php or another way, dont use it, or fidn the javascript somewhere which is doing me fine so far...

as i have said, i know a nice amount of PHP and and am able to do a fair amount, and would think im bording on advanced... but as always the more i do the more i learn and the more fun i have.

im assuming by document construction you would be refering to things such as privacy policies etc? well i have knocked up a couple of docs like this for the charity site i am doing (http://calm.dansgalaxy.co.uk/sitedocs.php?id=privacy) is one.. which i did ALOT of research for, i cant rememeber how many sites i looked at and how many policy templates i looked at, and i eventually came up with that which i think covers everything, (feel free to comemnt)

Accessibility: well as im trying to code to a xhtml 1.1 strict alot of accessibility things i try to do (alt, title) descriptions etc, and i try to make it as avaible to as many people as possible, but i think when i move on to much bigger sites this will be a bigger issue and i can expand on what i already do.

i would like to think i could write a site from scratch, in a text editor and browser, but i love my dreamweaver (in coder NOT wysiwyg) makes coding SO much fatser

i have soem knowledge of databases at the moment all i have worked with is MySQL because its what my hosts have supported, and of course MS Access for other stuff. not sure what normalisation is could you explain?

Datastructures i think i have a good idea, but theres always more to learn.

the only extra programming experiance would be a little Visual Basic, when i did all my college experience (3 colleges two of which i did computing and did small VB programs - i made a Fruit machine!! )
but i am planning once i know a little more PHP and i have got some stuff out the way to start learning VB and get confident with making some simple little programs in that and then later when im in college i can maybe expand.

i now realise this post is HUGE so sorry, and thanks to people who have botherd to read it all

So what else do i need to qualify?

Thanks,
Dan

John I think you get to be a web designer or developer the moment you decide to call yourself one. That doesn't necessarily mean you're good at what you do though.

I don't really worry about what title I might give myself. I hardly even know what to call myself. The disciplines between design, development, programming, and even marketing all start to overlap.

To me this is more about letting the free market decide. I guess the answer might be the moment you're a professional is the moment someone pays you to do whatever it is you do.

I like web standards when it comes to building a website and make it usable and accessible, because I think those standards help everyone in the profession. Having standards makes is much easier to design and develop. I'm not sure the same would be true with professional standards.

Web standards are based on empirical things. Standards tell a browser that any time it sees a a certain line of code in css it should render a certain piece of html code in a certain way. Professional standards would end up being based on someone or someone's opinion.

I'm fine letting the market decide things. It's hard sometimes when you see so called professionals offering garbage and ripping people off, but the majority of time the people getting ripped off had a part in getting ripped off by not putting any thought into their decision who to hire.

I can't say for sure that the case would be the same for the design industry, since I am still a poser trying to put my little toe in the door, but I would imagine the repair field and the design field will probably have the same problems with "professionals". Various competitors of mine require all of their employees to have Microsoft certifications, "the standard", yet their clients are back with problems a few months later. People pop in anti-virus software and plug-and-play devices and call themselves technicians. I stopped in at a local shop to see if they had a NIC I could purchase because I was all out and needed one that day. This is a large shop that has recently expanded, yet the owner/tech, asked what a NIC was. Even when standards are set there are always going to be cheat spots, information provided that will never be relevant, and people running around knowing a whole lot of nothingness.

And when I could piss people off because what I was doing was so unique, I really knew I was a designer/coder.

touché !

* i seem to have no skills with design and can only really dobasicgraphic work, and dont seem to (yet) have the nack of knocking upgddesigns with css like some people can.

Dan, tis is typicall of many developer.
Programming and graphic creation are not the same, they are not tied in any way.
I consider myself as a medium to good programmer, but I'm the lousiest designer you could ever find.

Know your strengths, and delegate to other people who do better design than us the parts you are not mastering.

* i would want to so confident with the lanaguages and my ownabilityto do the project that i could sit and just do it, with outhaving tothink a tremadous amount about it.

And that will never happen.
You know why ? Because a good programmer don't rush on code without thinking it.

As for me, I think you end up one or the other when you have enough passion to what you done to think to make it your job.
10 years ago, I was swearing that I would never do programation. I simply didn't saw what's interesting in that. I specialized in the networking IT and lan/man management.
After some time, in my first company, the manager told me that there wasn't going to be enough work for 2 peoples for that, but that a position inthe dev team was open, and asked me if I would be open for that.
Heck, I preferred do web programming than being unemployed, so I accepted.
And now, I'm working every nights until 3am on personal projects, doing consultancy on server performances problems, or simply rewriting old stuff I did months ago because I had an idea how make it better, or more modular.
I even became an Oracle pl/sql developer...

I don't think that there need to be a policy about the terms, or certifications in our field.
Sure, there are thief, but they don't last long, in what I saw.

The problem lies that non-technical peoples often see us as "the computer guy".
For many, if not most of them, the technician that comes to change the toner cartridge inthe office printer and the DBA that manage a cluster of db servers are doing the same job: they are "data processing specialist" (litteral translation from French "informaticien" to English by google translate).
This French word is like an black hole, for me. Every people whose work is by computer can fit in this description.

So, when they need a web site, well, the have heard the guy which re-installed word talking about making web sites.
He's "informaticien", so he knew what's this about, let's ask him !

As long has peoples are not well educated to make the difference, this will happen. Like when you bring your car in any garage...

Originally Posted by PC Catastrophe

I can't say for sure that the case would be the same for the design industry, since I am still a poser trying to put my little toe in the door, but I would imagine the repair field and the design field will probably have the same problems with "professionals". Various competitors of mine require all of their employees to have Microsoft certifications, "the standard", yet their clients are back with problems a few months later. People pop in anti-virus software and plug-and-play devices and call themselves technicians. I stopped in at a local shop to see if they had a NIC I could purchase because I was all out and needed one that day. This is a large shop that has recently expanded, yet the owner/tech, asked what a NIC was. Even when standards are set there are always going to be cheat spots, information provided that will never be relevant, and people running around knowing a whole lot of nothingness.

I know EXACTLY what you mean.. you cant win you either get people like you said or you go in and the guys the highest level of geekness

- ok in pc world (and im gonna LMFAO if hes on here but i doubt it..) asking about hard drives.. anyway ended up talkin about this guys 4ft high servers with i think it was over 1.5TB or space and how for the power for it alone was 3 months of his wages.. anyway bottom line the guy was a super geek and a arragant person at that

does anyone else look at the "sales assistence" (or lack of..) people who think they are the best and think wait a minute you are obviously no where near as good as you think, if you were you wouldnt be on minimum wage...

Originally Posted by PC Catastrophe

I can't say for sure that the case would be the same for the design industry, since I am still a poser trying to put my little toe in the door, but I would imagine the repair field and the design field will probably have the same problems with "professionals". Various competitors of mine require all of their employees to have Microsoft certifications, "the standard", yet their clients are back with problems a few months later. People pop in anti-virus software and plug-and-play devices and call themselves technicians. I stopped in at a local shop to see if they had a NIC I could purchase because I was all out and needed one that day. This is a large shop that has recently expanded, yet the owner/tech, asked what a NIC was. Even when standards are set there are always going to be cheat spots, information provided that will never be relevant, and people running around knowing a whole lot of nothingness.

That's the problem in a nutshell right there. Most people have no idea what they're doing or talking about. I've had so many go-arounds with IBM "certified technicians" and "certified CSRs" that it's sick.

And didn't you know that Norton Internet Security is the universal solution for all computer problems? It detects so much...umm...so often...ummm...well, it doesn't really detect much of anything, but it sure solves it! No wait...it doesn't solve much either...and creates more problems...but...it's really good, so shut up!

I have taken to taking any certification with a pinch of salt, So often I have seen people with few qualifications who can knock the socks off so called "experts". So many times people wave a piece of paper and think they know better when a lot of the time raw talent and experience shines through.

Jamie

So many times people wave a piece of paper and think they know better when a lot of the time raw talent and experience shines through.

I find that there are a few professions like this. A webmaster can learn everything outside of school. A pilot or a doctor shouldn't being flying without tons of professional training. The difference is, in freelance work, you don't need to have certification if you have a product.

Then again, i remember seeing ages ago a program about people who went abroad for plastic surgury. because it was cheaper.

and some of the undercover images of these people and what they do was horrfic.

i think there was one "surgen" who was using kitchen utensials for surgury..

and once woman who had a attempted tummy tuck, now has huge scaring, and that was after UK qualified surgens tried to fix her up as best they could.

so i guess even professions where it is regualted they arent perfect...

i would point out tho that in the uk this wouldnt happen because regualtion is tight, just a shame it isnt world wide.

you see now if the british empire haddnt gone o sorry here have your countries back they might be better off! XD

Rule britana, britana rules the waves.
and shall never never never shal be slaves!

dooo do da de dum dee da dar lar de do do dum