Sorry to hear these kinds of things. I watched Bruce Lawson’s, Accessibility – Back to the Future talk (https://youtu.be/T2CjuAwrAq8) where he asserts, quite compellingly, that our JS-heavy toolsets are costing users dearly and doing them a disservice. Which is just not on!!

I don’t use these kinds of JS-based things, I could, I’ve even written full-stack JS desktop applications before, but right now I’m on a massive platform built using Scala+Play+Twirl, there’s little scope for JS in the browser given Progressive-Enhancement is mandatory for this huge customer.

What’s worrying is the idea that all Web Developers are or should be JS Developers. I don’t like the lack of distinction, so after watching Bruce’s great talk, I think I’ll market myself as a Worldwide Web Developer just so people know there’s a difference between something that’s made ‘of the web‘, and not just some JS-dependent application that happens to be ‘on the web‘.

To be honest though, I’m so turned off by the dependency hell that is JS development, that I’m done and moving on.

My opinion is that we shouldn’t separate these to disciplines and demand from html/css designers as well as javascript engineers to write decent html/css and write decent javascript.

The Division Bell in the background.

Hello. I am a Designer & Mathematician. In course of a day, I may switch from visual prototyping to coding or vice versa. Javascript lets me build very custom experiences thru functions and continuity of the space. I find CSS a great compliment and sort of a ruler to manage the discrete existance and relations on the page. I believe the division is not about the tools but the two types of people: Digital Designers who doesn’t know the code/context, and Engineers who doesnt know the design language. The first crew, often, in fear of complex coding, seeks refuge and safety in basic tools with an excuse of keeping things simple. Simple is great, but arriving at simplicity thru a tool or process that has the power to create complex beauty is the real art. The second crew, just doesn’t get it. They are often engineer types who have much less exposure and practice in design thinking. I personally gave up on collaborating with an alpha-coder on UX or Visual aestatics or execution styles. By the way the same frustration exists in other fields, for example Architects vs Structure Engineers. Many engineers, just because they have the skills to execute things, are delivering the crap we all see live in. The nature of free markets and current economical ecosystem makes it hard for the real thinkers and doers to reverse the power dynamics. When there is a demand for production and to produce more things, the crew who has the prominent skills in executing fast and scalable products, becomes the front runner. The system cares less about the best way to do it, or who is doing it right, because there are no reward attached to practice of such values. Ending on an optimistic note, I imagine in near future, with a lot of disruptions in classic education, we will have a generation of talents who are less biased towards their degrees or titles and have spectrum of skills and interests in building things that matters. I never really understood why designers should generally hate coding & math or why engineers are so proudly monochromatic. They are all the same kids in playground. The fear and division bell is conditioned in education, workplace, job-titles, job-postings, etc.

To quote from his post: ” Frontend design involves creating the HTML, CSS, and presentational JavaScript code that makes up a user interface. ” – so, its exactly what this article is about, isnt it? The great divide between Javascript Frontend Developers and Frontend Designers (back in the days we just called it Webdesign, but nowadays folks think its something what graphic designers do .. ugh).

I’m an informatics college student and have a technical degree on programming. As a student I learned concepts about databases, object oriented programming, data structures and so on.

When I decided to get serious about specializing on frontend development (I already had some css/html knowledge), I started learning angularjs and got excited to use it in some real-world project. But when I got my first job, my responsibilities as a frontend developer were almost exclusively related to making pixel-perfect websites with just a bit of jquery involved. I never got (and still haven’t got) the chance to use MVC frontend frameworks, since they were not needed. I guess they are only required for really large projects.

It has become a problem for me, since on one hand, the javascript ecosystem changes too fast and it’s difficult to learn even the names of all the libraries out there, while on the other, my practical knowledge ended up being that of a ui web developer, so it becomes even more difficult to jump to the JavaScript side without feeling I wasted my time on the design side (I like css/html and ui overall, but it feels weird to be in this particular position).

This is pretty much my life the last 3 years. I’ve had to leave behind the majority of what I actually enjoyed doing in order to hold the job that I got, which was completely different than what I thought I was applying for. Considering that I moved cross country for it, I didn’t want to abandon a solid Amazon position to hope for something more enjoyable, especially given the feedback I got when looking around for non-javascript-framework work…

“Frontend Weekly” is written by the JavaScript Weekly people, so it is understandably biased. Headlines there are all framework based. (https://frontendfoc.us/issues/380)
Managing Image Breakpoints with Angular
Animation in React
Working with the React Context API
New JavaScript Features That Will Change How You Write Regular Expressions

“Frontend Focus” is more balanced. (https://frontendweekly.co/)
Exploring a Back/Forward Cache for Chrome
When is a Button not a Button?
What Should Developers Consider When Planning a React Application?
The Dark Side of the Grid

“CSS Tricks Newsletter” is actual journalism, not just an index, and is the best of the bunch IMHO. (https://css-tricks.com/newsletters/)
how to use CSS Grid the right way
a few services that allow you to do cross browser testing
Social Cards as a Service
Writing Animations That Bring Your Site to Life

I have a practical question for anyone reading this. How would a front-end developer, that’s doing more of the ‘design’ side of things, look for a job? What titles / subjects / words should one look for?

@Julie Perfectly, well-explained, real-world everyday experienced scenario. Bravo. You are better with HTML and CSS works and developers are better with their coding parts. You both need each other (mostly the developers need designers more) . Most of the developers do like this “they just brush over their coding parts and let the Web Designer clean up their mess later”. I am also a Web Developer and in starting I was doing like this. Then after seeing what problems Web Designers face, I realized mistake on my part. Then I tried to solve most CSS problems by myself or from online help (reading sources etc.) Now I am used to write perfect formatted code and I don’t like messed up code like some parts here and there.. (though it takes more time but I PREFER it.) In my opinion, both Web Developers and Web Designers should discuss ideas, problems, skills together to deliver perfect product at the end.

I agree with Markus here. My hope is for the industry to realise that it is as absurd for a web page to contain JavaScript to render its content is as it would be for a Word macro to produce the rest of a Word document. It’s a bit hypocritical to react to the Word example with “Ugh, why would anyone do THAT?” but the Web example with “Meh, it’s 2019, get with the times.”

I enjoy writing JavaScript, and it’s critical for things like form field validation to reduce server load, for example, but I’ve seen many client-side platforms rise and decline, e.g. Flash, jQuery, Bootstrap, Angular… and I’m not convinced React or Vue are any different. If something has no future, then there’s no point in it having any presence. Sounds harsh I know, but that is the Web. I mean, I wouldn’t partner anything I create to a product with no future, that’s just not a good investment.

A JavaScript-dependent solution is suitable for writing a game or desktop-like application, but that would mean you have something that’s ON the web, but not actually a part OF the web. Users don’t need a pseudo web rendering engine to enjoy content. There’s so much sales hype and marketing nonsense pushing these new frameworks that it reminds me of The Emperor’s New Clothes, a lot.

JS will inevitably take over everything front-end.

Nope, that will never happen.
Because 1KB JS > 1KB Images > 1KB CSS > 1KB HTML

therefore highly optimized html/css only sites will always be faster than js-based sites.