What Do You Call People Who "Do HTML"? 586
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?"
Underqualified? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Web Producer (Score:5, Interesting)
My title is Web Producer [indeed.com]. 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.
"HTML Guy" (Score:3, Interesting)
No, really.
They are distinct (or should be, on any project larger than a local church site) from the graphic designer and the "DB Guy."
I've seen all sorts of crazy titles on their resumes, and that's fine, self-esteem and all that, but "HTML Guy" is how we refer to them.
Now, gather 'round and have some peppermints: Back in the Day, 1992-93, when I project-managed my first website, we were paying "Web Guys" six figure salaries, cuz basically Corporate needed it yesterday and it was all a big mystery. Had something to do with computers, they said, so the Web Guys came out of the IT Departments, bringing their blink tags with them. Within a very short time, it became clear that it was the Art and Content that mattered, and that's where the money went. (Best Analogy: On Broadway, nobody pays to watch the Stage Crew, essential though they may be.) The smart art and design people learned what they needed to hang out a Web shingle, and the HTML-only guys were sent back to the server room. Some of them became "designers" (they're usually the ones singing the praises of "neat" and "clean" designs; translation: they'll electrocute themselves if they try to open PhotoShop), but the smarter ones moved over to the Web DB side of things.
What do we call the "HTML-Only Guys" today? How about: "hungry"
Re:I just call them Web Designers (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Screwed? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Screwed? (Score:4, Interesting)
I consider webmaster to be someone who can administer server aspects. Jump into httpd.conf, hosts config file...
Actually (Score:3, Interesting)
Translating arbitrary designs from Adobe Illustrator into HTML / CSS is pretty much what got me by for a few years following the dot com bust, and then became a decent job (and no, it's not like I couldn't have been doing anything else: during the boom, I'd done plenty of software development in C, Java, and Perl).
Is that time over? The trend I notice is that there's no shortage of challenges in getting HTML / CSS which displays reasonably well across the proliferating number of active versions of Internet Explorer, standards-ish based browsers which aren't quite all the same, and the proliferating # of mobile devices. I've been out of that loop for about a year and a half and it already seems like some of my knowledge is out of date.
If you add to that the fact that more people are drinking the CSS positioning kool-aid and also sortof discovering actual criteria for good markup, I'd say the days where you can make a living off of it are far from over.
Re:Not very bright in most cases (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:I just call them Web Designers (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep. And I have a CivE undergrad from an ABET accredited school, and I've done programming work for a state Board of Licensure for engineers and architects. But I've never taken the FE/EIT or PE tests. I do have Brainbench certificates as a Web Developer, Web Designer and Web Administrator, but they're not really worth anything. (I got bored one month, with an unlimited license, and got certified in 26 jobs)
If you're a licensed engineer, and you're shown to be neglectful, you can lose your license. Wouldn't you love for there to be some sort of repercussions for bad programming? Be it crappy voting machines, or the electrical grid shutting down, or a lost satellite? As it is, maybe company folds, the programmers/managers/whomever make a new company, and continue to spew their malware-by-negligence into society.
A doctor might be able to kill half a dozen people before he's caught ... a CivE might lose a building and kill a few thousand (assuming that it wasn't an explosive failure) ... but with software, who knows? Medical instruments, nuclear reactors, etc ... the possibilities are *huge*.
A list apart 2008 survey (Score:3, Interesting)
A list apart did a 2008 survey under webdevelopers, which has a list of function names, etc.:
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/findingsfromthewebdesignsurvey2008 [alistapart.com]
Re:Screwed? (Score:5, Interesting)
A webmaster is someone who controls the content of a website.
Adding some ammunition to your statement above, I had a boss that was the "Webmaster" but couldn't have been a dumber blonde. She couldn't write a lick of code, didn't know PHP from HTML from Javascript, yet she was the "Webmaster". She once managed to turn a simple address input into a 9 page form (separate page for first name, last name, address line 1, address line 2, etc). I convinced her bosses that I could do it in 1 page and they agreed.
I'm not sure if she was promoted to a position where she could do less damage, but the website she was responsible for (a California TV station) is now nothing but Google ads. Shortly after I quit I was accused of hacking their website. It turned out that her new developer didn't understand an SQL query and told her I was using it to hack in.
I don't call myself a webmaster, because I think the term is used way too often by people below my level of expertise. I don't want to be associated with those guys. When selling a website project, I call myself a "Web Application Developer", partly because it's more descriptive of what I do and because the lesser beings wouldn't dare use it for fear that they might actually be asked to develop a web application.
Absolutely! Everybody quit building software;) (Score:4, Interesting)
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...
Re:Screwed? (Score:4, Interesting)
For us in the profession "webmaster" is less a content role anymore. A CMS provides the means for content owners to manage content.
As for what role a "webmaster" takes on ... in my org it has moved into more of a technical position since the ground has shifted under the old meaning.
The "web developer" tends to be one who writes code at the backend, writing bridges between data systems, or libraries for front end web folk to do their work.
In my role I need control over the following:
- define the data (structure the content into fields, and define the metadata that binds it altogether)
- manipulate the data (with some type of template system typically, query the data, add/delete/modify -- although this last step is frequently a content owner)
- present the data (this encompasses front end XHTML/CSS/JS, often the visual and behavior layers, and, it means we need to dynamically query the data on various pages to recombine it)
I am a "Web Strategist and Designer". We also have a "Content Producer" on the team who shares tasks.
It all breaks down according to how big a shop you are... Webmaster still works as a catch all but when you have a real CMS strategy, and a team, that traditional role breaks down. You want to start having someone think with foresight about the visual design, UX and UI of the site, the tools that people work with, and the content strategy. You want team members who either are implementing this strategy, or, using the strategy in day to day work...
It's a tricky space. What does this role perform?
Are you recruiting for a catch all?
Will this person lead the development of the overall Design strategy? Note the big D there... it's more than a photoshop template as you know. It's the XHTML/CSS structure that is forward thinking, the behavior layer that builds upon the user experience, that interacts with a content layout or information architecture...
Will this person only code back-end to middleware solutions?
Re:I just call them Web Designers (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.microsoft.com/canada/learning/QuebecMCSE/default.mspx [microsoft.com]
Slicers (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I just call them Web Designers (Score:1, Interesting)
"Doctor" is the title you earn when you get your Ph.D. or equivalent. What you're thinking of is an "M.D.", "Dr. med." or whatever you want to call it.
Anyhow, you have just reinvented the European trade guilds of the middle ages. Congratulations.
Designers (Score:3, Interesting)
You are not a programmer unless you are writing code and/or dealing with dynamic functionality. If all you are doing is HTML/CSS layouts, slicing images, etc. then it is design, not programming.
Pulling data from a database into a web page? Programming.
Formatting the grid control in the web page, without touching whatever makes it tick? Design.
It depends.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Screwed? (errata) (Score:1, Interesting)
Should that be "erratum"? ;^)
This isn't your father's HTML... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I just call them Web Designers (Score:1, Interesting)
Every university in the English-speaking world takes issue with your notion that "Doctor" is a protected word meaning "Medical Doctor."
I agree with your general notion that a Software Engineer should be the person who guarantees that a software product can not depart from the specified behaviors as long as it is operated within the specified guidelines. Right now, I don't think there are very many software engineers.