@elly when I started out aeons ago there wasn't the front-vs-back end separation there was now: you could spend your day doing SQL queries and then muck around in CSS and HTML.
That's not necessarily a bad thing. But what has changed is the (IMHO) unnecessary complexity around delivering what is, at the end of the day, the same combination of HTML, CSS and JS to the browser.
@elly as I’ve been interviewing a lot lately, barely anyone has blinked an eyelid when I mention my extensive accessibility experience. Maybe I should audit companies’ sites before talking to them
@elly let me investigate a little bit. chances are that this privacy oriented browser blocks some resources (css probably) coming from external sources? Google or other service providers? let me have a look
@elly yep, i saw everything is in a single style.css file. i tried with the chrome remote debugger but no clue, so far. i hope to find some time tomorrow because the thing is intriguing me now (i didn't know you can debug styles on a smartphone using your pc)
@elly ok i think i found something: the text color is defined as a LCH color, which is supported in Chrome starting from version 123. Latest version of Bromite is based on Chromium 108.
"I hate it. There are so many things wrong with #React. The cult surrounding it, the company making it, its countless footguns, its bloat, its incompatibility with web platform features—the list goes on."
@elly I have concluded, un-scientifically of course, that the early aught’s role of Web Designer/Frontend Developer, or as Brad Frost has renamed it, Front of the Frontend, is more of a niche, and that very few people get paid to sling HTML and CSS from scratch to make static websites, or even “appy-like" sites, like in a formal job in a company were the title includes Developer or Engineer. https://medium.com/gitconnected/the-great-divide-is-dead-why-theres-no-such-thing-as-entry-level-frontend-05f8d68a0f9a
@elly just read it 2 times becausy my adhd brain needs two passes to comprehend. And I totally agree, I personally get quite annoyed when the company I used to work at forced me to mainly think "how can I get this to work in React?" rather than "should this even be written in React?". the answer wqs an obvious no, but the company only knew how to work with react and that was what your entire position was boiled down to :gura_stare:
js tools are also nightmarish, opaque and inflexible. I love projects like htmx that try and solve this issue but the entire frontend world has just become so inflexible..
@elly As a backend dev that started "full-stack" and keeps learning about frontend to understand how to make things easier for frontend devs... i feel this...
I don't wanna be frontend, even if i don't mind quickly fixing minor issues... The frontend space is such a mess of disconnected tools, none of which are ergonomic to use...
@elly I mean don't get me wrong, I understand the weird intricacies of HTML, and while my CSS is a little outdated, i can easily find my way back.
To me this is about more than just "i wanna be able to do what i like". To me this is about "I want to work with tools that don't constantly make me angry, look for weird cryptic reddit threads or wiki pages 15 forums deep.
I think the general programming profession has this issue. Requiring degrees where degrees aren't useful, hiring based on checkboxes rather than skill level and general expertise, there are so many dumb things.
I used to love programming, it's such an amazing thing. I get to do crazy cryptic shit other people couldn't dream of, while creating shit that could help them. What's not to love about that?
But when it comes to it... Even when it is a "backend developer" job, you still have to know and understand DevOps shit... and don't let me get started about that, because the patience needed to figure out dumb, weird, barely documented and cryptic config formats (often yaml, which should be considered a warcrime by now...) is insane....
I'm a web developer, I CREATE web infrastructure, i have no interest in figuring out how to fucking set up someone else's badly documented infrastructure that uses 10 different, partially migrated, mostly obsolete systems that are barely documented, because the developers didn't think it necessary.
sorry for the long one, but this really hit a sore spot for me.
I have a dilemma. I'm trying to find a job but the job I'm looking for no longer exists. I'm a front-end developer. Which to me means I work on the user interface of the website. But now in our industry front-end means the same thing as full-stack. 1/2
Front-end developer job descriptions include many back-end duties. There are almost always even more back-end duties than there are front-end. This is because the industry has devalued front-end development. To the point where it's no longer considered complex or time-consuming enough to be a full-time job. 2/2
@elly I feel your pain, but the battle was lost as soon as #developers started self-identifying as #FrontEnd or #BackEnd specialists. We asked for it.
And here’s where I shake my old “webmaster” cane and mutter about staying off my lawn: I started #WebDev in 1995 when skills were so new and thinly distributed that specialization was nigh impossible. It’s freakin’ hard to keep up with the ever-exploding web technology stack, but it can be done.
@mjgardner@elly Well put. And may I add, learn standards, not frameworks — web standards compliance and browser interoperability have come far since the 1990s.
That's not to say that a well-chosen library or two isn't sometimes helpful — backend or frontend — but as soon as someone identifies primarily as an "Angular developer" (or "Ruby on Rails", or "JQuery," or "Node.js" …), I assume they have at best a superficial understanding of the web.
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