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Ben Halpern
Ben Halpern Subscriber

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What are some misconceptions about web development?

When people think "web development", what do they get wrong?

Top comments (125)

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buinauskas profile image
Evaldas Buinauskas

According to my mom, I'm installing Windows. πŸ€·β€β™‚οΈ

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stephanie profile image
Stephanie Handsteiner

According to everyone: I can fix printers.

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jrop profile image
Jonathan Apodaca

This. 1000 times this.

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alessandrojcm profile image
Alessandro Cuppari

According to everyone, I can fix their computers. If only they knew I can barely fix mine when it fails.

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patarapolw profile image
Pacharapol Withayasakpunt

I expect everyone to be at least electrical engineer and devops. I don't care about your coding.

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vaibhavkhulbe profile image
Vaibhav Khulbe • Edited

I feel some recruiters think if they're hiring a web developer, they must be good at that AND:

  • Mobile app development
  • DevOps
  • Design (for full-stack web dev mostly)
  • And God knows what else! πŸ€·β€β™‚οΈ

I sincerely think they're in a great misconception. Come on man, I'm good at web dev that's why I want to _dev_elop a _web_site! I'm not good at Kubernetes!

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shaijut profile image
Shaiju T

:) But I think this is the Job of Full Stack Developer. Isn't ?

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scott_yeatts profile image
Scott Yeatts • Edited

Yes, but also to varying degrees. I started in FE, but I'm also very comfortable building a backend codebase. I'm weaker with DB and devops.

Don't get me wrong, I can stand-up a DB and deploy kubernetes containers, but when you get into the deep understanding issues I lean on my teammates that have devoted more time to those disciplines.

Full Stack doesn't mean "knows everything at an advanced level" it just means you can be productive and contribute at any level (while knowing when to call for backup and not spinning your wheels when someone else could help you get there faster)

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vaibhavkhulbe profile image
Vaibhav Khulbe

Full Stack doesn't mean "knows everything at an advanced level" it just means you can be productive and contribute at any level

Highly agree with this. Thanks for your input :)

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jgusta profile image
jgusta

I’m going to use this phrase instead of full stack :)

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vaibhavkhulbe profile image
Vaibhav Khulbe

Well, for me as a front-end dev, all of those skills just doesn't make sense!

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micahlt profile image
Micah Lindley

That's what I originally thought about backend technologies. However, as I move into increasingly difficult frontend topics I've learned that having experience in Node, NPM, custom APIs, and other server-side is extremely beneficial.

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Adrian Bece

Before I started working with React, I was an ecommerce (Magento) frontend developer. At the time, when I was trying to explain frontend development to a person that doesn't know much about programming, it usually went like this.

Person: "So what is it that you do at your job?"


Me: "I develop websites, I turn design into code and make sure everything looks, and sometimes function, as expected.


Person: "So you're a designer, then?"

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feministclickback profile image
tina

When I was working at an ecommerce company, my relatives were convinced it was Amazon. The concept that there are Amazon-like online shops out there were a bit too hard to grasp ;)

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darkwiiplayer profile image
π’ŽWii πŸ³οΈβ€βš§οΈ

Basically another version of the typical

A: "So what do you do?"

B: "I'm a programmer"

A: "Oh, so you fix computers and stuff?"

B: "No, I... uh... just forget it."

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adrianbdesigns profile image
Adrian Bece

Something similar happened to me with an older neighbour.

A: "So what do you do?"

B: "I'm a programmer"

A: "Oh great! Can you fix my TV?"

That was back when CRT TVs were still a thing.

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darkwiiplayer profile image
π’ŽWii πŸ³οΈβ€βš§οΈ

It's not like I blame people for it, but it does make me wonder why nobody cares what programemrs really do yet I don't exactly see many people asking a carpenter to fix their car.

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saswatamcode profile image
Saswata Mukherjee

HTML & CSS are not programming languages. Also frontend is easy and not time consuming.

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barbu110 profile image
Victor Barbu

They are not programming languages. Front end is easy as long as it’s not too complex. After that, it becomes a challenge indeed.

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cheetah100 profile image
Peter Harrison

HTML is a markup language. Javascript is a full on language. There was a time when front end development was second class, but today there is no real distinction between front end and back end in terms of skillsets.

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fluffynuts profile image
Davyd McColl

They are all programming languages. Some are declarative, some are imperative. A declarative language like CSS doesn't make it "less than" or not "full on".

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cheetah100 profile image
Peter Harrison

I didn't say CSS is less than. It has its function as a cascading style sheet in the context of HTML. HTML itself is a markup system for content, even if ironically the content these days is delivered through REST API more often than not. Front end development usually involves some kind of framework like Angular, Vue, or React. Each technology has its place. However, if you only know HTML and CSS I don't know how you would fare in a modern web application development environment.

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12boxbandit05 profile image
Christopher

I'm currently trying to self teach myself and if you wouldn't mind answering a beginner's question, what should I learn besides HTML and CSS? I had planned JS as my third lesson.

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fluffynuts profile image
Davyd McColl

JS is a good place to go next! You'll be able to use it almost immediately with the HTML/CSS knowledge you have, and, in addition, you'll be able to start doing back-end stuff on Node. If possible, get going with TypeScript -- there's a little extra overhead, but it will (a) help you to make fewer mistakes and (b) set you up for Angular or React (and you can use it effectively with Vue too, and on the backend!)

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jacoby profile image
Dave Jacoby

Just dropping into add that you can solve FizzBuzz with just HTML and CSS.

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guitarino profile image
Kirill Shestakov

If your definition of a programming language is "structured text which represents machine instructions", then, yes, HTML and CSS are programming languages. But, instead of imperatively saying "add an element X to parent Y", it's written declaratively as <Y><X></X></Y>. And, since there's no branching instructions in HTML, it's not turning complete.

Funny enough, under the same definition, markdown is also considered a programming language, meaning I just wrote a little program πŸ™‚

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martixy profile image
Martin Ninov

And if my grandma had wheels she would have been a bike.

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ashleyjsheridan profile image
Ashley Sheridan

HTML & CSS aren't programming languages. They're computer languages, but not programming languages.

Same with things like JSON, markdown, etc. They're no less valuable for that, and the web wouldn't be the web without them.

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vadzimpm profile image
Vadzim Papou • Edited

Yes - they aren't. To reduce misunderstanding you could translate what these acronyms stand for.

Hyper Text Markup Language and Cascading Style Sheet
Where did you see programming language here?

If they are programming languages then please show me how you will implement factorial algorithm with only HTML and CSS and I will agree with you.

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pris_stratton profile image
pris stratton • Edited

I came on to say β€œCSS is easy”.

I find it harder than learning Haskell or C πŸ˜€

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darkwiiplayer profile image
π’ŽWii πŸ³οΈβ€βš§οΈ

CSS is extremely difficult, specially to programmers, because it's a completely different way of thinking. At the same time, it's an extremely elegant language and I wish more programming languages had that same level of elegance.

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pris_stratton profile image
pris stratton

What makes it a different way of thinking, the declarative nature of the language? Think that’s the right term.

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darkwiiplayer profile image
π’ŽWii πŸ³οΈβ€βš§οΈ

Not only that, but also the non-linear aspect, I'd say.

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darkwiiplayer profile image
π’ŽWii πŸ³οΈβ€βš§οΈ

HTML and CSS are not programming languages. Front end is, however, just as time consuming as back-end.

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gillarohith profile image
Rohith Gilla

When I say I am a web developer my little cousin thinks I am a spider man πŸ•Έ

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madza profile image
Madza • Edited

When you start to catch up on all the JS frameworks, your cousin actually turns right :)

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patarapolw profile image
Pacharapol Withayasakpunt

web developer !== web emitter

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sergix profile image
Peyton McGinnis • Edited

"So... I hear you write websites. Can you make me an app?"

People always assume, at least in my cases, that web development = native app development...

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maskedman99 profile image
Rohit Prasad

Well, if you know React you can say Yes :)

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somedood profile image
Basti Ortiz

"Sooo... you can hack a Facebook account, right?"

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hj profile image
Hemant Joshi • Edited

Googling is most important skill to have and it really is❀️

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Adam Crockett πŸŒ€

I wasn't hired, Google was hired.

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hj profile image
Hemant Joshi

this surely made my day

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adam_cyclones profile image
Adam Crockett πŸŒ€

Its not completely true, I am an experienced googler 🀣

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hj profile image
Hemant Joshi

Bro you need to stop, or I will stop learning Node and react!

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adam_cyclones profile image
Adam Crockett πŸŒ€ • Edited

No please don't stop on my account, truth is I have been doing this a long time and I couldn't remember it all, there is just no way, but I can remember the topic or the right questions (the secret of success in programming, ask the computer the right question), so I use Google as it is a tool to get such answers, you as a programmer are expected to use the right tools for the job, brains often degrade over time.

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hj profile image
Hemant Joshi

❀️❀️❀️

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fratcliffe profile image
Felicity Ratcliffe (she/her)

This is absolutely true! :)

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hj profile image
Hemant Joshi

lol

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Panda Quests

But it is.

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muhimen123 profile image
Muhimen

I know HTML, time to hack NASA

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fhsinchy profile image
Farhan Hasin Chowdhury

People often treat web application development as something inferior to making desktop software or mobile application.

I honestly don't know why.

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pandaquests profile image
Panda Quests

Yeah. I think it used to be like that. But nowadays it is just as complex as backend development