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Ben Halpern
Ben Halpern Subscriber

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What are some misconceptions about web development?

What popular belief is not true or not completely true in web development?

Latest comments (26)

 
qm3ster profile image
Mihail Malo

Don't fix that typo, it makes it even more accurate.

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jamesmh profile image
James Hickey

From non-technical people: They just think you make pretty html pages - even for "Amazon scale" apps.

No idea what goes into the backend -> queuing work asynchronously, message brokering, distributed architecture, service segregation, exploring domain contexts, CQRS and/or event sourcing domain events, etc.

How do you even explain to non-technical people what you do in this case? "I make really complicated web applications?" is the best I can come up with 😂

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rhymes profile image
rhymes

Yeah, maybe back in the days of Microsoft Frontpage frontend was easier. Now it's a little bit insane, as you're noticing with your fronted experiments I guess.

I don't know if backend is truly easier (distributed programming is not necessarily easy) but there's a ton more documentation and established practices.

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flexdinesh profile image
Dinesh Pandiyan

"Front-end is easy. It's just positioning elements on the page and applying colors."

I've given up trying to explain to people that Web Engineering is a lot more than what you see on the screen.

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kayis profile image
K

I have the feeling, many people think of web development, and in particular, of front-end development as graphic design.

I guess Flash and Shockwave are to blame.

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dougblackjr profile image
Doug Black

Because I can make a website, I can fix your printer.

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adaddinsane profile image
Steve Turnbull

Great ... can you pop round? Mine's not working...

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maxx0r profile image
Max

That anyone who's stuck in any other career can "just get into it"... That one really bothers me, it's often thought that anyone can be a Dev. Ofcourse some people have talent, but it's not simple or anything

 
puritanic profile image
Darkø Tasevski • Edited

@asparallel Yeah, there's a lot of differences between US and Europe jobs when talking about this field, but requirements for the field entry can be also different from country to country in Europe as well.
Btw, we've worked with Indian companies once or twice and after seeing what code abominations are coming from them I don't think that we (from Europe) can be compared to them on the same level.

Also, note that while I don't have a degree and I'm self-taught that doesn't mean that I don't know any CompSci theory and math. You don't need to know these things that much for field entry, but once you're settled you have no excuse for not knowing them, you should sit down and spare some time to learn about software architecture, CompSci theory, and math or those things will come around and bite you for sure.

Another thing is that I'm currently working as a full-stack engineer to be exact, I'm doing some coding on the backend (C#, Node) and working on DevOps infrastructure as well. I was thinking about going to college this year, but it's just a waste of time here, and I'm good learning on my own.

@dcmdorazio Please finish college, while degree sometimes is just a paper it can be useful for a number of things later on in your life.

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dcmdorazio profile image
Cody D'Orazio

I plan on it. I was just looking for more guidance on how to be better while I continue my degree. Thanks

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puritanic profile image
Darkø Tasevski

Sure, feel free to DM me if you need help with something. What I can suggest you is to find something you love to do and then practice the hell out of it until it becomes the second nature to you :)

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alchermd profile image
John Alcher

"My son made a website (Wordpress) in school, why do you charge so much?" and a hundred variations of this sentiment.

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larswaechter profile image
Lars Wächter • Edited

That web development is just about HTML.
When I tell people I'm a web developer they often say: "Oh cool so you 'program' in HTML?"
My answer is always that the web is much more than just HTML.

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valorm profile image
Valorm

Ooh so you program In html? 😹😹

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