The “Conservatives” of the Web Field

Let’s all just admit it. Technology upgrades really fast nowadays, and that also means our methodologies of building things for the web gets upgraded along with the rest of the current technology. Just look at all the tools that the world wide web offers for all of us, whether if you’re a beginner, a hobbyist, or a would-be professional. Bootstrap, Sass, Emmet, WordPress starter themes, you name it. 😊

I was working on the first part of the Emmet tutorial when I found a good overview of Emmet featured in Smashing Magazine. I was reading the comments of users there, even though they’re a few years old, I am quite appalled at some people not liking the idea of the Emmet/ZenCoding concept. One common reason why these haters were bashing Emmet because they feel that it’s the “cheating” version of HTML/CSS coding, or simply just coding together. Obviously, there’s some kind of old school elitism reeking all over that page, with them claiming that they are proud of using the default Windows Notepad for coding or whatever plain text editor they may be using and that writing regular HTML/CSS coding works for them. 😖

I would say this. As a web developer, you can do whatever is comfortable to you, but there is no excuse for you to bash new methods and technologies of the same thing. I’m even surprised that none of these people even mentioned about tools like Adobe Dreamweaver or Adobe Muse, which would make coding websites a whole lot easier without even touching a single line of code, let alone abbreviation coding like Emmet. Even Dreamweaver has Emmet support.

On the other hand, there is a reason why tools and techniques now available to us (many for free even) are being provided. The web is getting a lot more rapid, especially with things like cloud computing, cloud hosting, and even concerns about mobile data for smartphones and tablets. The demand for web presence among small businesses and individuals are on a high demand, and they want their website up and running tomorrow, not next month. And another thing, providing these new tools and techniques also would help inspire those who would like to build their own website in a basic, easy way without all the headaches. In fact, many professionals rely so much on these new tools and techniques to save time and get all their tasks done ASAP.

Here are my reasons why there is nothing wrong with web designers and developers using new tools and techniques for faster, cleaner, better production:

• Tools and techniques get things done fast without any fear and panic of mistakes.
• Your clients (who most likely doesn’t know the basics of building sites in the first place) don’t really care how you made their new website have a certain usable function and so on and so forth. They care more about results and that it’s done and ready to go.
• In a web developer/designer interview, you will be given a test, in which you only have at least an hour to complete. This is your chance of using these new tools and techniques (with permission) and build your test results on time.
• Everything is laid out for you, especially the skeleton. All you have to do is add your content and your styling. You are still coding.
• It helps you and those interested in learning and understanding more of coding/scripting in general and how things work with these tools and techniques.

Here’s the thing. No one is forcing anyone to use any of these new tools and techniques to do your own projects, however, if you do end up freelancing, and you do end up having your client to build a website for them, and if you’ve got a deadline, you know them old school techniques isn’t going to get your project completed. I’m not just talking about the deadline, I’m also talking about the features that the client demands in that website, like a secure contact form, parallax, javascript effects, lightbox for the gallery, etc. etc. You may want to start considering, don’t you think?

To put this in other words, let’s talk about drawing. There is traditional drawing and digital drawing. ¹ You are still drawing, either way, except you are using pencil and paper for the traditional and an illustration software for the digital drawing. Even though using the software is faster than traditional pencil and paper, the fact of the matter is, you are still drawing. It’s the same with web designing and development.

And if you think about it, why do so many renowned web developers are encouraging everyone to take advantage of these new tools and techniques? In fact, many of these renowned web developers are adding these new tools and techniques to their workflow for a much better, more streamlined process in building their web projects. There has to be reasons why we have these new tools and techniques in the first place, and it’s not so an aspiring web designer/developer can “cheat” (there is no cheating in web design/development, but there is such thing as being ingenious).

We have these tools and techniques to make our creations a whole lot better and a whole lot faster, just like the way we want them. ❤️