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What Do You Call People Who "Do HTML"?
gilgongo writes "It's more than 10 years since people started making a living writing web page markup, yet the job title (and role) has yet to settle down. Not only that, but there are different types of people who write markup: those that approach the craft as essentially an integration task, and those that see it as part of UI design overall. The situation is further complicated by the existence of other roles in the workplace such as graphic designer and information architect. This is making recruitment for this role a real headache. So, how do you describe people who 'do HTML' (and CSS and maybe a bit of JavaScript and graphics manipulation)? Some job titles I've seen include: Design Technologist, Web Developer, Front-end Developer, HTML/CSS Developer, Client-side Developer and UI Engineer. Do you have any favourite job titles for this role?"
nt
Rude names. :)
http://twitter.com/onion2k
Web Monkey?
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Propaganda as Nebulous as Apple's or Microsoft's
Unemployed? Seriously, expand your skill set and learn the backend and basic services so you can start to call yourself a full fledged "web developer."
House wives with spare time between cooking and putting the kids to bed make geocities pages with HTML. My advice is to not rely on something like that for your livelihood.
My work here is dung.
Is this going to end up in a Sniglets book or something?
Who cares what you call them, just about any job has a number of titles that are commonly associated with it. I call them web developers but if this is a popularity contest you should have done a Slashdot Poll instead.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
The time where 'doing HTML' (and CSS) was enough to give you a decent career is over imo.
As in, "Why am I paying you to do this? My newphew can do that!"
"My God...it's full of trolls!"
What's this, a set up for a joke about unemployment?
In my more recent experience, html people are liberal arty types who pick up some web design to complement their other skills. Photographers, animators, graphical artists. Webapp designers usually have some html, but often you have a coder and a design person and they have different responsibilities.
HTML by itself just isn't a marketable skillset anymore. Hell, it's hard enough being a graphic artist, or a flash designer, or something like that, who also does html.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
But why should an employer pay for PHP when all he needs is the basic skills? The point of the question is that they need to hire some people with basic skills, but they don't know what to call the skillset.
BTW, I vote for "web layout artist".
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Web Designer. At least that title was used a lot in off-shores/out-sourcing companies I had to deal with.
Web Developer was also used, but to lesser extent and only to distinguish those who can also do JavaScript, PHP, Perl, etc.
Easiest way to find the word du jour is to check job listings.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
I mean, it's great to have someone available to handle that sort of thing, but can you really sustain a job with this as your only skill?
Qualified would be
a) does HTML, is a graphics designer, can write decent text and hase some education in UI design
b) does HTML, programs any server-side-language (according to the current fashion) and knows Javascript very well, and knows UI (and can talk to class a))
c) does HTML, does databases and knows how to efficiently xslt the xml response of the database by heart and can talk to class b)
Seriously, the original job description given would have been appropriate in 1997.
Those would be my definitions as they relate to the production of HTML. Betty, the lady who types things up, puts them into some simple HTML, and makes a few things italic or bold or adds images is a coder. Bob, who uses PHP to make dynamic pages, is a programmer. Jerry, who uses Dreamweaver to do both, is a designer.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
My title is Web Producer. I didn't pick it, and I sometimes introduce the title with a joke about shooting spider webs from my wrists, or making prosthetic webbed feet for ducks who have lost their paddlers in tragic accidents. It's meant to be "web producer" as a role, like "movie producer" or "music producer", but it sounds stupid. Mainly it means I "do HTML" plus a lot of other digital/interactive design stuff (including programming and database work), and I manage other people who do this stuff.
IMO, there is a difference between a "web designer" and a "web developer" -- the former is closer to a graphic designer and focuses on making stuff pretty, while the latter is closer to a programmer and focuses on making stuff work. In big web studios, there are fleets of "web designers" who create interfaces in heavily-layered Photoshop files, and turn them over to "web developers" who convert them into working web interfaces. It lets people focus on a specific aspect of the process. However, I think something is lost in the process... if possible, a web designer ought to understand the power and limitations of HTML/CSS/etc. Maybe I spent too much time in art school, but I liken it to advanced painters who learn how to make their own paint from pigments/oil/etc., or ceramists who can make their own clay from the raw powders. In a similar vein, I think a web designer should know how to mix their raw materials too: pixels, code, etc.
That's my ideal, anyway.
Liberal? Conservative? Compare perspectives at Left-Right
Errata:
"or they might enter data into an HTML."
Should be:
"or they might enter data into a CMS."
How about child care? No money to be made there either?
Give me someone who can do proper HTML anytime over some jack of all trades who can do everything a little bit but is master of none.
Sure, if you think slashdot layout is good, then perhaps you don't need a html/css wizard but some of us have higher standards.
If you are serious about web apps you need just a good a HTML "coder" as a database expert and sysadmin as a coder and project manager.
But what to call it? No idea, the job is pretty rare on its own but as long as HTML is constantly evolving standard raped by every browser, only a handfull will be really good in it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
There are two main groups that fall into this category: artists and engineers.
Artists (or graphic designers) will know HTML, CSS, maybe a little JS. But it will be to complement their 'real' skill set, which is photoshop, illustrator, maybe Flash, and the like. They will focus on making the page attractive to users, and if they are worth their salt, easy to navigate as well.
Engineers (or web application developers) will know HTML, JS, hopefully CSS (!), along with PHP, SQL, maybe Java or Ruby. Their natural environment is the backend, but they will know enough about page creation to get by, like for making proof of concept demos. Quite often their idea of an elegant and easy to use web interface is a bunch of text links and a button.
Of course, in real life, you find yourself doing a combination of these things.
Oh, and to answer the original question : what do you call someone that does HTML, CSS, JS and nothing else ?
A: an intern.
Depending on how you're developing your site and/or Web application, having a guy or gal that can take the designer's design mockup (usually still in .PSD format) and properly interpret it into clean HTML and CSS wireframes is a godsend for the Web Developers.
There's a lot of finesse involved in doing this right: you need to make sure it works in all browsers, that the page size isn't too large, and that it stretches and scrolls and wraps in all the right places. And no, Dreamweaver still doesn't cut it, so it takes quite a bit of skill and experience to do it right.
With experience, most of the good ones move either up or down the stack, depending on their interest/strengths, but we wouldn't have been able to complete several large client projects without our "HTML/CSS/JS/UI/stuck-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place guy".
body massage!
Using a CMS never stopped anyone from writing HTML. .psd without thinking or knowing about what can or can't be done with html (I think this round site would look better with a lot of shadows and fake-3d effects), and then a developper spends hours to write HTML/CSS that will make the site look like what the client asked for, only to be told "it does not look very good on my internet explorer 4.0".
In a production environnement, you can't just use the CMS default template or download one from some website. You must design your own template, unique for each website you develop.
It usually starts with a client who want something between impossible and just plain stupid (My site must be round. There a too many rectangle sites out there already), followed by a salesman who want his 3% (no problem sir, everything in your site will be round), then a designer who makes a
Then the developper commits suicide.
The term you're looking for is "Web Designer" - Someone with an understanding of visual design as well as the knowledge of HTML and CSS required to implement said designs. May not have any programming ability. Probably spends his/her time in Dreamweaver, with forays into Notepad++ or BBEdit.
Design Technologist - Nebulous. Anyone who can use software to create visual designs. May be a print graphic artist, web designer, Flash developer. Need not require programming ability, or even any knowledge HTML or CSS. Probably a big fan of Fireworks and Flash, but could also be a big Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign or Quark user.
Web Developer - Someone who can use a dynamic web technology (PHP, ASP.net, J2EE, ColdFusion, Google Web Toolkit) to create interactive web pages or web applications. Also requires a kowledge of HTML, CSS and possibly JavaScript, as well as at least some programming ability. May spend a lot of time in Eclipse, Visual Studio, or another IDE.
Front-end Developer - Someone who can implement a user interface for a computer system. Would include people who, for example, create GUI interfaces to command line tools. Requires programming ability, but does not necessarily require any knowledge of HTML at all. Spends most of the day in Visual Studio or Eclipse.
HTML/CSS Developer - A Web Designer with pretentions of technical skill. Probably used FrontPage. Once.
Client-side Developer - A Front-end Developer (see above) who exclusively works with client-server architecture. Again, does not necessarily require any knowledge of HTML at all. Spends most of his/her time in an IDE.
UI Engineer - Someone who has at least some background in both CHI and software development; may focus on one or the other extreme. Requires some programming skill. Does not necessarily require any knowledge of HTML. Probably uses several UI modeling tools you've never heard of, and spends a lot of time drawing on whiteboards before settling down into an IDE.
Long gone is the singular Webmaster. His/her job has been broken into these pieces:
System Administrator:
Installs and maintains web servers and associated technology back-end infrastructures like PHP upgrades.
Network Administrator:
Installs and maintains networking infrastructure including firewalls, proxies, network caches.
Information Architect:
Creates informational structures to help put data into understandable and manageable segments. Often creates wireframes for page layout.
Web Designer (Artist):
Creative talent that produces graphical content that fit wireframes or other criteria for use on websites.
Web Editor (Writer):
Creative talent that produces textual content that fits structured segments or other crieria for use on a website.
Usability Expert:
Examines and adjusts wireframes and content to fit best practices for user experience.
Back-End Web Developer:
Programmer responsible for creating functionality that assists the display of content on a website. Often responsible for CMS and/or Database integration through to the site.
Front-End Web Developer: This is what you wanted, hence longer description.
Takes graphic content, usability widgets, back-end functionality, textual content and creates layouts using (X|D)HTML, Javascript, back-end code snippets, CSS, CMS template scripts. These layouts fit into certain strict parameters regarding SEO, size optimization (both image and code), speed of loading, cross browser compatibility, limitations of layout markup and specifications of back-end delivery of data. Lacking any of the above positions (and the one below), this person is often tasked with doing whatever is missing from the classic "Webmaster" position.
Quality Assurance:
Jerks.
..on what the website that needs design and maintenance does in the first place? There's no such thing as a generic website, some are just for fun, and may be quite involved and complex, but aren't really designed to rake in cash, so no, it couldn't be self supporting for the web-person most likely, whereas others are designed from the start to be profitable, an e-commerce site for instance.
Just as a casual web surfer, I can see the difference between a well designed and easy to use site or not, and that has to come from someone or a team that has superior skills, and a lot of those folks DO make a living at it, so it is like any other job.
"Wow, all you can do really well is run this CNC machine, is that really enough to make a living? I mean, you can't build a house or run a vineyard, your skills are lacking from my own leetness, so you must be inferior to me"
"Can someone who only understands transmissions really expect to make a living at that, just that one
skill, when cars are so much more than just the transmission"?
What's your skill, and how do you justify your check? Really, what are you saying?
The only reasonable answer is, if you somehow get a check from that skill, and the check cashes. That's the only justification or criteria needed to determine if your skill set is adequate or not.
... they used to call them, 'The people in the basement that we'd rather not deal with'.
Now, they call them 'Indian contractors'.
Have gnu, will travel.
I find it interesting that developers often make nice power point presentations... yet.. come up with some of the most horrid web designs ever seen. At best, a developer might crank out a blocky, black & white format following an outline structure. I wonder why this is so? Probably because in one arrogant swoop, you've over-simplified and invalidated what web designers actually do.
No one cares if PowerPoint produces a 10 zillion-byte file generated from one of 10 templates repeatedly seen again and again, because the file is an aid to presentation. People care if a web designer produces a 10 zillion-byte design that looks like it was ripped from another site. Web designers who are worth keeping, earn their keep by 1) creating unique designs, 2) creating optimized images/HTML/CSS (more than drawing a slice and selecting "JPG"), 3) ensuring cross browser compatibility, and 4) fitting input forms and content around the design. #1 means they don't fire up an application, select a template, change a few colors, and pass the work off as their own. #2 means the site downloads fast, renders fast, stretches horizontally or vertically within the design limits, follows a sane slicing structure, and reuses duplicated content where possible. #3 means it's tested and verified on all browsers and versions, which includes an understanding of browser bugs. #4 means the layout is congruent with the behavior and presentation of forms and dynamic text (ex. page reloads work as expected, form logic follows expected behavior, page navigation versus in-page navigation, etc).
None of those issues arise when slapping together a PowerPoint presentation: a fixed format document duplicated from pre-built templates, with no form logic, no user intervention, no concern for usability, virtually no cross platform issues (often displayed from the same laptop it was created on), and limited functional scope.
Camping on quad since 1996.
Was that just a clever way for you to get twice the carma?
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Errata:
"Carma"
Should be:
"Karma"
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
or for those with advanced skills: Commander of Visual Notepad.
In all seriousness, any process that is so well understood with an unchanging problem domain should be shoved overseas to keep the outsource companies busy and a high turnover of limited skilled coders believing that all software development is mind-numbingly dull:) __PLEASE__ keep doing this!!! That means when the hot-shot business idiot realizes he missed the call, that the problem domain isn't that easy he'll either get the axe or quit and do the same stupid thing somewhere else. Meanwhile, the time and distance, cultural communication problems and the BLATANT conflict of interest between customer and outsource company (e.g. "Oh yes! we will do that feature right away!" - wow.. that's a horrible idea:) these guys will pay us to re-write it because they're idiots! Whoo-hoo!) will make the solution that's no longer working easy to throw away and re-start with a minimum 50-50 local/offshore team. More job opportunities for people who stick around because outsource partners can't be trusted.
If the project can be speced and doesn't fail and doesn't need to change, great! That means it was a crap problem domain with nothing interesting to work through or solve - let the offshore company developers' eyes bleed with stupid feature changes for the next n years. If it does, it's job security for those of us who have stuck through this outsource stupidity (which is only a short-sighted cost savings move - the IT world equivalent of sinking all your money into credit default swaps).
For the past decade, 100% "cheap" outsourcing has gotten more and more expensive and has proved to be a bad idea for fast moving, competitive, REVENUE GENERATING projects. Failures have lead people to keep some level of local skills to address communication and quality aspects that are vital to success. But here's the fun part: how do you become a competent Senior Software Engineer when increasingly all the entry level positions are available in India and China? You don't:) That means I become a rare commodity as corporate America digs it's own human resource grave.
Keep digging corporate America... keep digging...
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
Seriously, if "doing HTML" is the only skill someone has to offer, they do not command enough to warrant a title other than slapping the word "Assistant" ahead of the title of their direct supervisor. Since even that may be vastly overstating the truth, simply "Administrative Assistant" with "HTML skills" in the job description has more than sufficed for the better part of the last decade.
What's the point of getting more specific than that when there is in fact nothing more to specify?
Erratum:
"Errata:"
Should be:
"Erratum:"
What do you call someone who does [b]UBB[/b]?
HTML and CSS are no more difficult nor deliberately accessible than what used to be called "word processing", but is now called "writing a letter".
Back in my day, typing and/or word processing were manditory high school courses. Do they even teach them anymore?
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines