Core Competencies
Published: December 5, 2021
Regardless of what languages, frameworks, libraries or the like you prefer to develop for the Web with, when you get right down to brass tacks it’s all about Web Standards at the of core of the front-end. Specifically and at it’s simplest, on the contemporary Web that implies HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. These languages are mature, very well documented and I seriously enjoy working with all of them, especially together. It’s a nice place to spend my work day.
HTML5 for lean, clean semantic content markup as well as accessibility attributes. CSS3 exclusively for styling the presentation layer view. CSS has become really fun to work with since the introduction and wide adoption of CSS preprocessors. While there are several popular and well supported flavors of CSS preprocessor to choose from, I decided to run with SASS. The flexibility and efficiency gains SASS provides with respect to maintainability of CSS is something I have gratitude for, daily. JavaScript for client–side input validation, Ajax/XMLHttpRequest and progressive enhancement. While I derive a tonne of enjoyment from authoring and crafting my own JS for unique contexts, I also like to leverage a mature and feature rich JS library (like JQuery) from time to time to handle common design patterns.
Above and beyond the aforementioned core, contemporary Web development almost demands us to perform a bit of server–side logic at a minimum and in many cases bounce queries off a database system. Enter PHP and MySQL (or any other fine server-side language and relational database management system you like). I enjoy working with PHP for it’s simplicity and the fact that its documented very well is a bonus. MySQL is the database system I’ve worked with the most, mostly because that’s what has been natively available on the servers that have hosted my personal projects/applications.
It’s such an exciting time to be doing Web design and development. I can’t wait to see what comes next!
Filed in — Web Development