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| Name One Thing About Web Development You Never Saw Coming Posted: 02 Dec 2010 04:32 AM PST
Not that this is universally true, but some people look haphazardly into a field before deciding to dive in. We do the odd bit of research, investigating the ins and outs, slowly developing expectations about this new arena of work. Expectations are not necessarily bad to have; they can be a powerful motivator. But sometimes our expectations are shattered by a development that we never saw coming.
Once again, we turned to our social media friends and followers for examples of unforeseen changes in the design and development world that tripped them up. Hopefully, by going over some of these pitfalls, we can be better prepared for the next ones — or at least be prepared for their fallout. With the way communities are constantly developing, changes are bound to surprise us, but if we are aware of how quickly they can occur, we might just be better able to adapt to them. A Better IE“Did someone say 'standards-compliance'? Well, it couldn't have been Microsoft. Oh, it was?” A chill ran over the World Wide Web as we heard the news — and saw the proof — that Internet Explorer was going to comply with the standards that the rest of the Web had been adhering to for a while. And it took only the ninth iteration of its browser for Microsoft to finally reach the shore from which the rest of us have been waving to them.
Many in the design and development community have long given up on the Microsoft crew, and many had vowed to stop catering to the IE crowd by not adding the extra code and tweaks that previous versions of IE required. So, when Microsoft announced that IE9 was bound for the market, you can imagine that the community was waiting with less than baited breath. Then news filtered to the public about the bells and whistles it would have, and people became shocked at the prospect of IE becoming compliant. Lesson Learned What our Friends and Followers Said
Mobile Web Explosion“A Web you can take anywhere? Are you talking sci-fi?” Not exactly, although we weren't exactly prepared for this by Back to the Future 2. The mobile Web has been a game-changer for the design and development community, and it caught many of us by surprise. It doesn’t seem to be slowing down either. Quite the opposite: the market is growing by leaps and bounds. What some assumed to be a fad has forged an entirely new direction for the market. For the longest time, the trend was to expand our viewable spaces. Designers planned for a larger Web, breaking out of the standard 960 grid, believing that the Internet would be grandiose and viewed on large screens. Things took a turn, and the Web was narrowed to much smaller mobile devices. The mobile Web exploded and seems to have created a virtual black hole that is pulling countless surfers in. People have fallen in love with the idea of taking the Web wherever they go, and they aren't looking back. Lesson Learned What our Friends and Followers Said
Social Media Dominance“Why would anyone care about a blogging platform that limits you to 140 characters?” “Who cares about social networking? We’re running a business, not a high school.” I wonder how those words tasted when they were eaten? Social networking dominated the Web almost as soon as it hit the scene, and it continues to attract more users than most of us could have imagined. The many social media outlets and groups out there have brought us connectivity as well as insight into the communities that use them. Who saw that coming? Dozens of social media networks are gaining traction, creating new avenues for marketing in the process. They are attracting not only veteran Web users, but also millions of people who previously saw little or no use for the Internet. No wonder these networks are dominating the market: they satisfy a need that so many didn’t realize they had. Lesson Learned What our Friends and Followers Said
Overall Market Stability & Growth“You mean I can make this my job? What are you smoking?” So many people never really saw the design and development fields growing so rapidly into a stable and secure job market. Thousands have committed to a career in a field that was once considered better suited to supplementary income or a lucrative hobby. The market now provides an endless supply of work opportunities and continues to evolve. Everyone knew the Web would be big, but not everyone recognized the need for professional designers and developers to make the most out of people’s experience on it. This stability and growth came as a surprise, albeit a welcome one. The broad and helpful community that has populated this market might explain both the stability and growth. The community has built a solid foundation for the coming generations. Lesson Learned What our Friends and Followers Said
Farewell XHTML — Hello HTML5“What is this nonsense about the return of straight HTML? XML-based code is the wave of the future!” Or so we thought. As we’re seeing, things don’t always work out the way we expect. When the coding standard went from HTML 4.01 to XHTML, many abandoned ship and cut down this x-citing new path. Some even called XHTML the future of HTML, doubting that HTML would have a significant version after 4.01. They believed the Web had gone the way of the X.
After nearly a decade of XHTML ruling the Web, HTML5 promises to change all that. We might have to say farewell to the X after all these years. Cue the dropping jaws and shocked expressions. Evidently, XHTML had not taken as strong a hold as we had thought. The standard is now revisiting its roots. Lesson Learned What our Friends and Followers Said
Bargain Bin“No one goes bargain hunting for design and programming. Quality always wins out over cheap and quick… right?” Apparently not. This is another of those dynamic and well populated fields that many people never expected to face. Lo and behold, as in almost every other business market out there nowadays, you will come across people who want bargain-bin pricing from their designers and developers. Some even expect bells and whistles with their bare-bones pricing. When the economy nosedived a few years back, many people could no longer afford top-shelf design and development. This sad truth, coupled with the slice of the public that undervalues the contributions of these professionals, opened a segment of the market that not only tolerates this undercutting but practically encourages it. Bargain-bin services have cropped up all over the landscape to capitalize on a demographic that is in crisis and, for lack of a better word, cheap. Lesson Learned What our Friends and Followers Said
Apple vs. Flash“This idea of community will steer the market, and collaboration between the major players will be the way forward, right?” Not if Apple has anything to say about it. Talk about shockwaves: many of us never saw Apple’s battle with Flash coming. Potentially deep-sixing a major player on the Web before its prime was a bold move. The field of battle has become anything but friendly as both houses make their play to shape the future of the Web. Flash has long been a favorite of many designers and developers, while being disliked by just as many. So, it was inevitable that the day would come when we would have to choose whether to commit to or abandon this technology. That day came sooner than we expected; once Apple dominated the mobile Web and app market and turned on Adobe. Flash is not supported on the iPad or iPhone, to the chagrin of some critics, and Steve Jobs made some rather unflattering statements about Flash's stability and usefulness in the wake of HTML5. Lesson Learned What our Friends and Followers Said
Jumping on JavaScript“Oh, please. JavaScript is a flashy fad. Give it time; it’ll fade into the ether.” A fad it is not. In fact, as pointed out by one of our social media friends quoted below, JavaScript has become so prominent in so many applications both on and off the Web that it has become a near necessity. For years, it has been enhancing the experience of millions of users, creating a more dynamic Web. In the beginning, some designers and developers saw little use for this technology beyond a bit of dazzling. Others saw its raw potential and took the reigns, working hard to elevate our experience of the Web and beyond, and making JavaScript a go-to language for so many developers. Lesson Learned What our Friends and Followers Said
The Persistence of jQuery“JavaScript is a complicated language, and we just have to accept that in order to use it. There’s no getting around it.” Well, that argument might have held up until 2006. But then one tool hit the scene to change all that. jQuery arrived and sent waves rippling through the community. Suddenly, this cross-browser JavaScript library was barreling through the ranks to become the most popular library.
In a matter of years, jQuery was created and used on nearly a third of the most trafficked websites. Clearly, there was no stopping it. Opening doors for developers in so many areas, jQuery became another one of those wonderful gifts to the community. Couple that with its open-source licensing, and it is easy to see how it has scaled such heights in so short a time. Lesson Learned What our Friends and Followers Said
An Animated CSS“CSS is impressive, to be sure, but it’s all about styling. Leave the animation to JavaScript!” Well, not so much anymore. Since about 2007, Webkit devotees and others have been developing the means to enable elemental animations via CSS. And with CSS3, what many in the community thought would remain a dream is becoming a reality. CSS is a powerful and popular language for styling websites, and no one ever doubted its adaptability, but the emergence of an animation module still surprised a few of us. Despite the crude animations generated in the early days of CSS, these more fluid JavaScript-like transitions are still quite an interesting development. Another shining example of the leaps and bounds by which the design and development community grows, ever moving forward. Lesson Learned What our Friends and Followers Said
More From our Friends and FollowersBefore turning the discussion over to you in the comments section, we wanted to share a few more comments from our friends and followers about surprises that caught them off guard. Thanks again to all of those who participated in this dialogue and to all those about to contribute!
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