This Damn Industry

This Damn Industry

on Dec 21st 2010 with 206 comments

Editorials on Nettuts+ are few and far between, but, given that we’re nearing the end of yet another year, I thought it might be nice to have a discussion on one sleep depriving aspect of this web development industry that we’re all privy to: it’s forever twisting and turning.

To those of you who have five or more years of experience: knowing what you know about about the steep, never-ending learning curve, would you be willing to start all over?

The more you learn, the more you realize how little you know.

An Example

Take me, for example: I’m 25, and have been working in this industry, in various forms, since college. By any other corporate measurement, I’m a baby — barely worthy of opening his mouth during a team meeting. However, our particular web development industry is a bit different in this regard: we’re young. Many of the developers who are rapidly pushing the web forward are under 30; how simultaneously amazing and depressing at the same time!

Depressing? Sure: depressing. They say that, in Mathematics, if you haven’t had your great idea by the age of 30, you’ll never have it. Of course, I use the generic “they say” because I’m really referring to a line from the movie, “A Beautiful Mind” — but I digress. The advantage to youth is all around us: it’s in the music you listen to, the JavaScript frameworks you love, the tools you use, etc.

Ever notice how your favorite music artists rarely achieve the same level of “magic” in a new album a decade after they entered the music industry? Why is that?

Perhaps, when you’re young, you’re open to new ideas, and question the status quo. Or maybe, fifteen-twenty years later, you don’t have the same drive as you did before. Rocky Balboa would refer to this as the “eye of the tiger”… or the lack thereof. He once lost it…and bad things happened.

Now certainly, this doesn’t transfer over “pin-for-pin” to our little ole’ web development environment, but it’s fair to say that it does in some small form.

My Days

Even when I get paid to learn, I’ve still found that it’s impossible to keep up with the pack.

A large portion of each of my work days is spent learning new technologies. Whether that comes in the form of deciphering the CSS3 Spec, or traversing through countless blogs (thanks, Instapaper!), my job requires me to stay up to date on the latest trends and techniques. I can’t tell you how often my laptop is brought into bed, as I work on a project long after the misses has fallen asleep. My gut tells me that we’re all familiar with the ubiquitous “laptop in bed” syndrome, as well as the hot groin effect. That said, even when I get paid to learn, I’ve still found that it’s impossible to keep up with the pack. For instance, let’s review a short list of exciting new technologies or scripts that I’ve yet to play around with:

  • CoffeeScript
  • NodeJS
  • ControlJS
  • LabJS
  • Raphael
  • Ruby / Rails
  • The Kohana Framework

Perhaps even more depressing, that list only amounts to what I was able to think of within a moment or so. In another six months from now, that list will triple.

Even scarier, at 25, it stands to reason that, within five years or so, I’ll have children. Right now, save a few scoldings from my fiancée — typically when she’s ready to leave the house, while I continually say, “5 more minutes” – I’m able to spend as much time as possible coding away in a room that’s long since gone dark, after the sun went down; because, of course, I can’t be bothered to turn on the lamp when I’m working!

To the Moms and Dads

To those of you who have full-time jobs, wives (preferably just one), and children: how do you find time to continue learning? Or, maybe better put: when do you find the time?

Why do we Keep Learning?

“Two mice fell into a bowl of cream. The first mouse gave up and died right away. The second mouse fought and swam until he churned that cream into butter and he crawled his way out.” – Christopher Walken

So this brings up the question: who do we continue learning new techniques, if those same techniques will invariably become out-dated within a couple years or so? How many useless, old tech books do you have lying around the house?!

I imagine that each of us continues the learning process for a variety of reasons.

  • Passion: From time to time, I mildly complain that it seems as if I never have time to relax, and, say, play that new video game I purchased a month ago, but haven’t yet dug into. Though, if I’m honest, it’s because, during my free time, I genuinely enjoy toying around with some new framework or personal project. As you’re reading this article right now, it stands to reason that you’re the same way.
  • Obligation: Perhaps your particular job requires that you stay on top of the latest trends, and aware of the specific changes/updates in each new browser version.
  • Competition: Is it possible that you neglect your friends in favor of a monitor because of competition with your peers? Do you worry that you’ll be passed by, if you take a month’s vacation?
  • Necessity: We’re invariably inspired by the websites we browse. Intrigued by Apple’s use of CSS3 animations on their website? Well, if you want to mimic that sort of effect without JavaScript, you’ll need to dig into some CSS3 articles on our website, or Andy Clarke’s excellent Hardboiled Web Design book.
  • Enjoy Punishment: Then again, it’s also possible that you enjoy brushing your teeth with a bottle of Jack, and grinding your teeth on the barely-readable HTML5 spec. Whether we admit it or not, I’d wager that we all fall into this camp. There’s a unique sense of pride that comes from learning frameworks and techniques that .1% of the population are capable of understanding.
[...] There is a world of beauty and intellectual challenge that is denied to 99.9 percent of those who are not high-level mathematicians.
– Andrew Wiles

If you’re somewhat like me, I’d imagine that you’ll identify with each of the possibilities above — at least in some small form.

What’s your Point?

Okay, okay; so is there a point to all this rambling? Maybe so; maybe not — editor’s prerogative!

Mostly, my goal today is to selfishly find solace in the fact that, like myself, others, too, stay awake at night, struggling with this frustrating, age-inducing and rapidly progressing industry.

Forget your years of experience: if you take even a year or two’s break from this industry, you’ll find yourself right back at the beginning, once again holding the title of “noob.” But seriously, do any of us ever truly get away from that word entirely? I’ve been using WordPress for years…but I still refer to the WP codex on a daily basis.

So the next time your heart-rate increases, as you, once again, attempt to wrap your mind around some new technique, or way of coding (think web forms vs. MVC), always remember: we’re all in this together; we all feel behind the pack. But, then again, we stay the course because we love this damn industry.

Conclusion

As this article concludes, I have only three questions for you, John Q reader:

  • How do you deal with the constant progression of our industry, and the understanding that, if you take a year off, you’ll feel obsolete?
  • Knowing what it took to get where you are today, would you be willing to start all over, if the clock was rolled back?
  • Why do you read Nettuts+ every day?

 
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I'm the editor of Nettuts+, and love making the process of building for the web as easy as possible. Also, I'm finishing up my latest book on Laravel Testing! If you want be friends, say hi on Twitter.  

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  • Mike Hopley

    I suppose I come at this from partly from an outsider’s perspective, since web design isn’t my profession — I’m just a business owner who happens to have made his own website.

    There are always countless things you *could* be learning or doing. How do you avoid becoming overwhelmed? By being selective about what you learn or do.

    You have to cultivate the ability to dismiss something without actually trying it — the ability to say “no”. For me, a recent example was CoffeeScript. It doesn’t solve a problem; it doesn’t help my business; I don’t need it. It’s just a toy, a plaything, a waste of time.

    That’s what CoffeeScript is *to me*. I’m dismissing it because it’s useless *to me*, not because it’s useless to other people. This is a subjective judgement.

    Saying “no” is your first filter. You simply decide that this framework, this tool, this technique — whatever it is, it doesn’t seem useful to you, so you ignore it. The great thing about “no” is that you can always change it to “yes” later, if you realise you made a mistake. But after saying “yes”, you can never retrieve the time you spend fiddling with this new tool.

    Your second filter is “yes, but not now”. For example, I know that I want to learn a PHP framework (probably CakePHP), because my project’s code has grown, organically, into a complete bloody mess. I want to sort out this mess. But not *now*, because I currently have more important business objectives (such as making content and fixing a problem with payments).

    Obviously your priorities are going to differ from mine. For a professional web developer, learning new technologies is more important than it is for me. For Jeffrey Way, learning new technologies is even more important, because this knowledge fuels the content on Nettuts.

    The balance is going to be different for everyone, but everyone needs some balance. You must be able to say “no”, or “yes, but not now”. If you always say “yes”, you become a technology magpie, spending all your time picking up the latest shiny thing and playing with it. You could spend every hour of every day doing this, and nothing else. There is always more to learn. Be selective.

    • Wassim

      You’re absolutely right. +1 in here :-)

    • http://mikeyblueeyes.blogspot.com JOEL

      +1 here too. It is partly the difference between being “into” programming at 25 versus being into programming at 35. I don’t want to sound ageist here, but, as suggested in the post, it IS a lot different once you get married and have kids and have more of that type of responsibility. I’m not married, nor do I have children, but I have noticed that I’m not as interested in “exploring” new technologies as I was 10 years ago (I actually started programming professionally at 18/19 in the Marine Corps using COBOL). I remember the early years of the web and how exciting learning HTML and then Javascript were (no Java applets for me… didn’t get into Java until 2005). Learning new frameworks and server-side languages is all about “what do I need to accomplish my job”. Even if you love programming and love design, as I do, the luster is off the pearl a bit when it comes to learning these things for the sake of learning them. You rarely have the time to spend days exploring a new technique.. certainly not on the company dime. If you’re an independent, as many of us are now, company time tends to be most of the time. There is, for me, at least, more of a “why do I care about this? I have projects to focus on” mindset that can set in. This happened to me over jQuery, which I now love. I only started using it (I’d been using Dojo) when I had to learn it because a new client is using it. Now I love both, depending on the application. Because I had to learn it quickly, for business, however, I never really found the actual act of learning jQuery to be “thrilling” or “exciting”. What it could do for me – the power of the library, yes. It’s not the same, however, as when I learned basic all those years ago in junior high or when I learned Pascal in high school and C++ and Natural 2 on weekends in the Marines.

  • Joao Lopes

    “How do you deal with the constant progression of our industry, and the understanding that, if you take a year off, you’ll feel obsolete?”

    - I work 8 hours a day (fighting against time to implement what i’ve learned over the years) to make some money. After work i sit in front of my computer and try to learn something new (that will keep me quiet for the next 8 hours).
    We are always learning and i’ll try to keep that in mind after 30 :)
    The industry is evolving and in constant progression because of us, we always want more, and they always give us more.

    “Knowing what it took to get where you are today, would you be willing to start all over, if the clock was rolled back?”

    - D-E-F-I-N-I-T-E-L-Y
    I’ve always been seen as the geeky guy or the nerd one, although i’m sociable.
    In the past i was a little down about “their” thoughts, nowadays, i’m the one who’s getting a life…

    “Why do you read Nettuts+ every day?”

    - I need it to evolve…

    Best regards,
    João Lopes (24 years old)

  • http://webdeveloper2.com Dave Kinsella

    Thanks for sharing, I don’t feel so bad about all of the half-investigated technologies and unfinished work on my hard-drive now.

    I first really noticed the problem when I took a job in corporate IT, building intranet applications. When I left the company after four years of building for a single browser/back-end stack, I felt like everything had changed in web development and I had to start learning how to do things using all of the latest techniques.

    That was in 2004, now it’s impossible to keep up with everything even if you work solidly at it. I’m resigned to trying to read enough about the latest developments so that I’m aware of what’s happening, even if I don’t have the time to try things out for myself. That way, I hope to be able to find appropriate solutions to whatever challenges I’m set.

  • jake wolfe

    Hey Jeffrey,

    Great article, full of humour and insight as usual. I’ve been in the (web) industry from the very beginning and have witness many raises and falls and what i’ve learned is that, as stated above, the only real thing you need if what I will call “a good education” in computer science and design. The law of evolution will push everything into place eventually. We humans crave for status-quo and standards eventually prevail. I’ve slowed down and remember life is what happens when you’re to busy designing websites!
    ;)

    j.

  • http://www.kevinbruce.com Kevin Bruce

    I’m 42 and have been in the industry since 98. The one thing I LOVE about “weaving the web” IS the constant learning. “YES!” I’d do it again!

    That being said I have a wonderful wife, a 4 year old AND I’ve never been a night owl. I still find time. I run a local web technology meetup (fredwebtech.com) and that helps to keep me fresh. The trick is, I pick my battles. I have not, and will never be on top of every emerging tech out there- I pick what I’m interested in and become really proficient in those tools. All the while, I keep me ear out for the new tech- I just don’t learn everything about everything. In my design years (I’m a coder with a BFA), I learned that anyone who said they knew everything about Photoshop (with the exception of about 4 people on the planet) was either lying or naive- it’s just too big to know. Same with the web industry and tech.

    So why do I read Nettuts+ every day?

    Here’s a secret- I don’t. But I use Nettuts+ emails to keep “my ear to the ground” and I read the articles about tech that I might find useful ;)

    • http://webkohder.net Sara

      Ah, a veteran from the days of tables and browser wars! I started hobby-coding as a teenager back in ’97 and remember back in college in 2001, when table layouts were still king and CSS was still in its infancy stage. Lame DHTML tricks were all the rage with my fellow anime nerd fangirl site webmasters. I read ALA all the time and used articles from there to get into big, drawn-out arguments with my academic advisor who thought PHP was worthless. He said it wouldn’t stick around. *lol*

      What’s the key to keeping up with all the changes? Probably identifying what’s likely to stick and what’s just a fad. Sometimes it’s hard when clients just read off names of technologies that sound cool and ask that you know all of them. But if the technology makes my life easier instead of harder, improves usability, and solves a *real* problem, then it’s worth at least a quick study. Being open source and free really helps, too.

      For the record, lots of what I read on ALA kinda went big and stuck around. I bet my prof feels pretty dumb, now. :p Reading trend-setting blogs is a pretty good shortcut to finding out what’s worth learning.

    • http://stevenmross.com Steven Ross

      – Spot on Kevin… I play this game exactly like you do.

  • http://jeremyhixon.com Jeremy Hixon

    “How do you deal with the constant progression of our industry, and the understanding that, if you take a year off, you’ll feel obsolete”

    I spend every morning, before work starts, reading the news from every site, in the industry, that I know and trust. I take every opportunity to use the latest methods and styles in the work that I do.

    “Knowing what it took to get where you are today, would you be willing to start all over, if the clock was rolled back?”

    Absolutely I would. The only thing I might do differently is focusing more on the development side of the web as opposed to the design aspect from the beginning. I am more able to think programmatically than I am creatively. Knowing where my strengths lie as I do now might have changed my path a little.

    “Why do you read Nettuts+ every day?”

    Because it’s on the list of sites I know and trust. The quality of the submissions is high and the informative nature is very welcoming. It’s one of the sites that is constantly providing me with ideas, educating me and inspiring me.

  • Tom

    I find time mostly at work in between projects.

    I tend to do it because I like to learn new things. Partly because I enjoy the punishment and eventual satisfaction of when I do learn something.

  • http://in-view.net/info Frank

    Good article, good insights, wrong conclusion! I believe and other comments bear me out that BECAUSE you are 25 you feel the need to ‘know everything’ about your field of interest. After almost FIFTY YEARS of professional software development, starting with war gaming at the Pentagon in 1962, and teaching large-scale operating system internals to C.S. degree candidates years later, and yes teaching myself web development just to keep up with the world, I realize that one needs to focus on what is important at the time and leave the rest alone until there is a real, profit creating, business need to know.

    We should be learning how to learn – not to learn everything there is to learn – huge difference.

    Yes, we depend on smart folks like you to dig into the depths of NEW methods, frameworks, languages, etc (like I did years ago with OS updates) and take what’s real and productive back to the masses like me. At some point that drive to know everything will settle down into much easier groove as you find areas that really interest you. Then focus to become an expert in that area.

    • Kel

      ++

    • http://www.pauletienney.fr Paul Etienney

      Amen !
      I think smart choices are the most difficult thing to learn to do.

      “No” is much more powerful than “Yes”.

    • steph

      @Frank: Could not have said it any better (I’m a 44 year mom, old who actually started in the industry just under two years ago). Background: corporate retail marketing, corporate financial communications, traditional PR/marketing. Currently: UX team – managing editor of online communities/content strategist for online university. I was chosen for my position having some digital/social/content experience – but I came with passion to do the work and keep learning. I don’t think anyone will be able to keep up with the constant changes in technology/web? Even the self-branded “gurus” will burn out or fall behind at some point. For me? I’m not afraid to try new things and not afraid to fail (and I know that I will time and again) But I read/study/learn from the experts (whatever age).

      But, I don’t believe age and not keeping up – will make you obsolete (heck I’m living proof). People just continue reinventing themselves. And, the great thing for you: you’re only 25. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Focus on your interests and passions and you’ll go as far as you want to in your career – and you’ll be happy with your decisions. PS, don’t forget to live your life. Work is only one aspect of your life, so be sure to balance it out with living/enjoying your life

      Ok, Thanks for the post!

      • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
        Author

        Thanks, Steph! Great insights. :)

  • http://interactivellama.com Stephen James

    Make sure you have the overarching big picture down. As with most programming languages, yes, they may be different, but as long as can code well in pseudocode implementing them is mostly using a reference. Make sure you know the paradigm before you handle any large projects.

    Also, the idea of running a business (being self-employed, etc.) and being required to learn all the latest web engineering skills could be too much. You may not be able to do it all. If you don’t have time between projects to learn, then either don’t learn or don’t have as many projects. You don’t need to know how to use every latest innovative project (unless that IS your job), but it is good to know the purpose of that project so that you can utilize it in the future if needed.

    • http://interactivellama.com Stephen James

      Oh, and for your ‘learning’ RSS feeds, use a weighting service like PostRank, so that you don’t have to read the headline of every blog post from all 200+ blogs you read from.

  • Josh

    Hi Jeff,

    I’m 21 and i have been doing web design for a few years now. I decided to start learning the development side of things a couple of years ago. I currently know HTML and CSS pretty well.

    I have been visiting this site now for about 6 months and i tend to read up on things on a daily basis, but i still do not know what to learn next. Do i go with PHP / Javascipt? or do i start again and learn HTML5 and CSS3? I really do not have a clue.

    Although im new to all this i can see exactly where everyone is coming from with all of the new technologies.

    P.S. If you anyone fancies pointing me in the right direction regarding the above that would be brilliant! :D

    Josh.

    • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
      Author

      Here’s what I’d recommend starting with, in order:

      HTML, CSS, a bit of JavaScript, PHP (or other server-side language), and then back to JavaScript.

      Of course, this assumes that you’re a front-end developer or designer.

      • Josh

        Ok brilliant, well im looking to learn PHP as my server side language.

        I am currently in a job role of a junior web developer so i have picked up alot of basics already, however i am very kean to learn in my own time. I have looked at the tutorials on Lynda.com so i will probably learn from there.

      • http://frankiejarrett.com Frankie

        Years ago I made my first big dive into CSS using Lynda.com tutorials, must have been about 2005 or so. They certainly are a great resource for beginners.

        Just wanted to +1 on Jeffrey’s recommendations, its pretty much exactly what I did, and in the same order.

        As far as learning HTML5 and CSS3 you aren’t learning everything all over again, rarely is everything about a new spec is entirely different, usually certain parts of it are just better or new, that’s what you want to learn. Having knowledge of any preceding spec most certainly gives you the advantage. I would recommend getting a solid understanding of four things when learning a new spec if you are familiar with its predecesor:

        1. What’s been changed

        2. Why it’s better this way (or not, if you like to debate)

        3. How new features are properly implemented (a.k.a. find lots of cool demos/tuts and start sniffing through code)

        4. How much is safe to use now w/o causing compatibility concerns in my existing projects

        This has always been my approach to learning a new spec quickly enough to start using it…there is plenty more necessary to learn, but I’ve always learned as I go, and to do that, you have to get going :)

        Best of luck to you Josh!

        //Frankie

      • http://mikeyblueeyes.blogspot.com Joel

        I would add that, since you specifically mentioned it, HTML 5 adoption is still far enough off that it doesn’t need to be at the top of your list. Ditto for CSS3. There are a lot of things to love about both, but intranet development in a company won’t use these techniques for years, given that most corporate intranets are accessed solely via Internet Explorer. IE 9 is due out next year sometime, but it is going to support very, very few of the HTML 5 features (See: http://www.deepbluesky.com/blog/-/browser-support-for-css3-and-html5_72/ )

        If you are primarily doing programming in a corporate environment, of course you should focus on the technologies your company uses. Then focus on those technologies you are likely to see if you move to another company of similar size. In other words, learn Java. Even if you don’t think it’s cool. Learn Java. Then learn C++ and C#. With mastery of those two languages (which have a lot in common), and of XHTML, CSS 2.0, and Javascript, you can build web applications/public sites/intranet portals for any industry, and you can build the internal applications which allow companies to exist in the modern world. Writing Java servlets which aggregate data from the computers in locomotive engines with data from the rail yard’s maintenance logs in a SQL database, for instance, isn’t the sexiest job in the world, or writing a C# application which analyzes weather data obtained from the National Weather Service and builds detailed reports to assist the meteorologists at the local station, but they pay a lot better than building websites in PHP for startups all day.

        If you’re in a smaller company or an independent contractor, learn PHP and MySQL. They are used so often for web sites and web applications because they’re fast and free (Free is the bigger reason). Next, learn Javascript from the ground up. Don’t start with a framework. Learn Javascript so deeply that you can pick your framework based on the needs of the project and run with it quickly because you understand how the language works and acts. This will be important no matter what size company you work for or what server side language you use.

  • http://realcostdomains.com Steve

    What a great article!

    I’ve been in this for 11 years now. I work a FT 40 hr job, run 10 sites of my own, Freelance 50+ projects yearly on Vworker/Rentacoder all on top of being a husband plus homeowner.

    I try to dedicate a minimum of 6 hours weekly to watch tutorials, learn new languages(technologies) and PLAY with new codes. I also spend another 4-6 hours weekly to competitor research and browse for the latest tricks out there.

    I usually sleep from 1am-7am (6 hours a night) but then let my body sleep in on Sunday’s to catch up.

    This has been a pattern for 10 years now and my family/friends think I will be dead from overworking within the next 10 years.

    Sometimes I think they have a point – you can’t know it all – even though most webmaster try to.

    Really – Who wants to outsource work nowadays except big corps.

  • http://twitter.com/garbaczd David Garbacz

    The number of comments on this article alone shows our passion!

    At my job whenever I have downtime on a project, I try to use it to look into any sort of tech that might deem useful. Although I only half-assed’ely know: Sharepoint, jquery, DotNetNuke, MVC, WordPress, Tumblr….. and that list goes on.

    Also I think in our field, it’s always said that we need attention to detail. Without that attention, it separates us out from all the other mediocre designers and developers. I think a bit of ‘perfectionism’ comes with that territory. We’re always striving to keep learning and try to topple over the other guy in order to seem ‘more perfect’ in the loose sense of the term.

    If I had to roll the clock back and start all over, I wouldn’t. Honestly I think it’s the dabbling into all of these technologies that make you really measure their worth and if it applies to you and your personal goals. I know there are some people that eat / pray / love Drupal but I’ve never touched it in my life because I don’t find it relevant. I probably don’t plan to touch it either. But the great thing about that is that there are plenty of us out there that have gaps of knowledge that can be filled in by other people to create such a great hive mind.

    I read NetTuts+ every day because it kind of helps fill in some of those gaps. Half of the things I know now I never would have found out if I didn’t read NetTuts. It’s just another way to keep on top of the latest things out there and maybe delve into them further. And I thank Jeffrey and the all the other editors for TutsPlus that take their time to showcase this information for some of us that just don’t quite have the drive yet.

  • Andy

    I came back into this industry just this past year after a four-year hiatus on other career paths. At the time I left, the emphasis was on coding to XHTML 1 and CSS2 and using divs instead of tables; HTML did not have a 5; the leading-edge browser was Firefox with a 2; the latest version of WordPress did not start with a 3; the mobile web was still wrapped in swaddling clothes, and I can remember explaining to a new colleague of mine (who was fresh out of college in computer programming) what AJAX stood for and how it worked and feeling like I was incredibly on top of things.

    In that interim period I maintained a couple of aging websites on a very off-again on-again basis with so little time to wonder about new techniques that I never looked up the track at the light of the train that was bearing down from the horizon.

    So I came back into it a few months ago to do some new sites for friends and. . . Whoa!!! You can do WHAT with CSS3? That great effect isn’t Flash, it’s something called jQuery? Those Adobe tools I’ve got that are labelled CS2 — they’re HOW FAR out of date?

    It was time to hit the ground running and I feel like I still haven’t caught up. Just as I think I’ve learned how to do two new things there are two more new things that showed up this morning from nettuts or Smashing Mag or. . . And just as I think I really should try to ignore the new stuff and focus on life again I see a website done with the new stuff and get all wide-eyed and slack-jawed and it’s back to the online tutorials I go, staggering upstairs to bed at 2 in the morning with my wife asking, what were you doing all this time and trying to explain about how tonight I’m trying to learn how to code my own WordPress plugins cuz I didn’t know how to do that three years ago, and there’s this new geoLocation api in HTML5 I just have to look into and I there’s something called SASS I want to try but I think I will have to learn a language called Ruby and that’s all I need, yet another language to learn, and. . . .

    I’m exhausted. I’m way past 25, way past that 30 milestone where the great ideas stop coming. This is definitely an industry for the young, or for those who never left it and tried to rejoin it. I don’t think there is any other industry on the planet that changes as fast and as far as this one does.

  • mdoo

    Jeff – first off, huge fan and liked the grittiness of your article.

    You asked: How do you deal with the constant progression of our industry, and the understanding that, if you take a year off, you’ll feel obsolete?

    This problem – the web industry is at full sprint and leaves those with any other priority (family, friends, sleep) behind is an issue I feel, as a women, I have dealt with my whole career – even back into college.

    To be honest, I’m not entirely sure how to react. You feel enough pressure of the foreseeable need to share your priorities with that which you know will be important (wife, children) yet neglect to notice (or specifically say) that this is the ultimate “choice” most women have *always* faced. I’m excited that we’ve come far enough that men notice that they can’t be the idol earner, they must participate in their families, but find it odd that you don’t call out that this is not a new problem. No blame to you – notice that I’ll be only the second(?) female to even make a comment on the article (which is itself a completely separate issue) – you can only speak to that which you know.

    Basically, I’m going to make it work with teamwork from my dedicated partner (he’s also a web developer). We regularly stay up until 4am tag-teaming project code, we can fit in diaper duty too.

    Loving what you do (this damn industry) comes with fortune and misfortune. It means you’re always on the clock. It’s rough sometimes but I’ll take it over where my less fortunate friends find themselves: in careers they don’t get hot groin or personal satisfaction from.

    • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
      Author

      Hi Mandy,

      The answer is that I don’t feel that I neglect my family. In fact, my fiancee, Allie, and I do almost everything together. I’d never let work interfere with my relationships.

      My primary point, though, is that, when I am working, there’s never an absence of new things to learn.

      • mdoo

        Thanks for the response Jeff, I was applauding your concern for the future, when family demands are even higher, knowing this industry will never let up. I know that with previous, less supportive partners, I had to sacrifice a lot more. You always sound happy when mentioning Allie too, so congrats.

        Exactly – the primary point of the article is right on, I agree with the comments that say this is the fastest and craziest profession out there.

        I however was taken aback, not by you, but that I was only one of two women to even make a comment and that I feel like this pressure has *always* been on me, women, in general – the multiple demands of life, which I believe contributes to women choosing careers that aren’t so evolving and are easier to leave, and wanted to call that out for what it was worth.

    • Bryce Pelletier

      @mdoo – some pretty good comments. I was glad to see that you brought up neglecting the family. I currently work a full time job an hour and a half drive each way, go to school full time online, freelance as best as I can fit in my understanding clients and help raise and home-school 5, yes I said five children on my single income. My wife and I have been doing this now for my entire 3 year career in web development. I can guarantee you that there is always time for family. I do mean now and not later or tomorrow. Not only do I participate in the family, but I also have not missed a dinner with the family, spare a few, in over 8 years.

      Like you said it’s all about priority and I would add drive.

      @Jeffrey – You are definitely right. There is NO shortage of stuff to learn when it comes to development.

      Cheers

  • http://davidgmead.com David Mead

    I’ve been in the web development business for the better part of the last decade. Most recently I left my job in Seattle where I was a jack-of-all trades web dev. It was truly a grueling experience for all the reasons stated in the article. I left because I moved to Idaho to be closer to family (and I was sick of the constant battle). When I arrived in Idaho, I thought about giving up on the web industry. I’ve had a good deal of experience in other lines of work as well. But I eventually found a good company to work for that allows me the freedom to focus on the area I want to.

    I am now primarily a front-end developer. By focusing just on front-end rather than everything, I am able to keep up much easier than I used to. I still occasionally have to make a quick edit to a PHP file, but I don’t have to write PHP from scratch anymore. Now when I take a look at net.tutsplus.com or other web news sites, I can safely skip all the non front-end articles. I read about half of the news I once did and am happier for it.

    In addition, I also realized that I don’t have to know everything. I used to think that if I didn’t know every HTML 5 or CSS 3 snippet by heart that I was going to miss out on something. But the truth is, the older sites that I’ve built with XHTML and older CSS still work just fine. So why should I have to know everything about the newer tech. Yes, I want to know, and I am learning, but I’m not so worried about it that I lose sleep on it anymore. If nothing else (when it comes to HTML 5 and CSS 3) I have the excuse that the specs aren’t even finished yet, so I don’t feel so bad that I haven’t mastered them.

  • http://vidarvestnes.blogspot.com Vidar Vestnes

    Thanks Jeffrey, great article. You are truly gifted with teaching skills.

    It would be brilliant if you ever got the chance to give a speak or spread some
    enthusiasm at some tech-related seminar in Norway! Preferably near Trondheim :-D

    I have read the article and all the comments posted so far (3 pages by now),
    and I must admit that it’s fascinating, and a bit scary, to see how we developers think,
    feel and experience things in the same way, even we all use different tools & languages,
    work in different companies, and even live in different countries and continents,
    and not to forget the age difference ranging from 16-60 years!

    I suppose that most my colleagues would agree with the essentials too – less is more,
    keep it simple, be pragmatic, don’t panic about new stuff,
    build half a product and not a half-ass product, etc etc…
    I think that what makes us different is; execution and how well we can convert our
    thinking into everyday work. Maturity might be another word for experience here.

    Btw. I’m 31, and have worked with both Java/Android and PHP since 1999,
    but must admit that I’m absolutely not an expert in any of those languages,
    and will most likely never be. With expert i mean the “Guru” that knows every
    little micro-optimization that you can do to make your code run a few milliseconds faster,
    knowing the newest plugins or frameworks there is, whats up for the next patch release for mysql etc etc..
    I have meet people like this, and i take my hat off and salute you if you are one of them.
    Its quite impressing to keep up, and to absorb all this knowledge and to always be a
    “cutting edge” developer. But knowing that I’m not that kind of a person, but still have
    managed to successfully delivered many projects, I have kind of proven to my self that its
    not needed. Or said in another way: I have gained so-called valuable experience!

    >> How do you deal with the constant progression of our industry, and the understanding that,
    if you take a year off, you’ll feel obsolete?

    I can’t lie, I still spend a lot of time reading blogs, news, stackoverflow, going to meetups, coding on private projects etc.
    Being a developer is not a classical 9-17 work for sure. But I find it a bit luxary since I can be inside a warm
    office, have access to warm coffee, ok salary, great collegues that are helping out in any situation… etc…
    Frameworks and new technologies are not what usually gives me a bad day. My bad days comes from my own bad code and complex business logic, no matter what language I use :-)

    My simple rules are:
    * Fix critical bugs before new features.
    * Don’t think about scaling and optimizing before its a problem.
    * Tell your boss: its possible, but not recommended due to it’s complexity.
    (If your boss is any good, he or she will listen!)
    * Implement things as easy as possible, read as: drop fancy features.
    * If you are doing something in a new and innovative way, you are most likely doing it the wrong way.

    Would I feel obsolete after a year off?

    No, absolutely not, one year is not that big deal.
    I could still create a lot of good web applications with PHP and MySQL, or even Android apps,
    even after 2 and 3 years. The core concepts and the basics of the platform are the most important,
    and they don’t change or go away within a year…

    >> Knowing what it took to get where you are today, would you be willing to start all over,
    if the clock was rolled back? Sure.

    >> Why do you read Nettuts+ every day?
    Oh, because Jeffrey Way, and Burak Guzel share their knowledge in an elegant way.

    TIP: Make Premium subscription payment easier. What about Visa? I dont use paypal and would love
    to become a premium member.

    Merry Christmas and Happy new year,

    and let 2011 be the year your private projects reach the cloud!

  • Michael

    Hi Jeff,

    Great Article,, First, you are completly right. Tha changes are way too fast, the days are too short ;)
    Nevermind, i’m 28 right know, startet in the bizz with an age of 19, first as a hobby and from time to time deeper into my own company,

    At this time, we are a company of 2. I have 2 children at home, a wife which from time to time, wants to see me or go out ;) and yeah, there is just not as much time to keep in line with all the new things..

    but hey, you dont have to, believe me.

    Just pick the things you like the most and keep some simple things. Most of the clients doesnt like all this new blink, bling stuff ;) especially for medium companys.

    Sure, there are nice frameworks, new cool possiblitys with css3 and and and and.. Nice, but does this really matter if you know, that 20% of your clients still use this crappy IE6 ;) Its really really hard to calm down as a “geek”, but one day you realise that you can be happy with a bit more free space in your brain, bit less stress at evenings, doing your bills and manage your bizz and enjoy the family.

    its funny, sometimes i think it runs much more easier, since i learned to turn off and take a break.. before i was always working, learning, studying and slept less then 4h a day,

    To know what you did till know is worth a lot, look back and see, ha.. we survived frontpage, iframes, fixed height homepages, crappy flash things ;)

  • http://www.renewedpilot.com Brian

    Hi Jeff,

    Great article, as always!!

    I’m just glad your industry continues to grow and expand. For the last fourteen years, I’ve been an airline pilot. The instability of my industry has caused enormous stress and setbacks for me an my family.

    But, that instability forced me to learn new skills. Today, I spend most of my free time trying to reach an intermediate level in many of the areas you discuss.

    Thanks again for all your teaching… I wish I had that knowledge when I was 25! Merry Christmas.

  • Greg

    CoffeScript is, to me, useless and the newest waste of time. Why learn a new syntaxis/semantics for a language based on standards and that is like 10 years old (JavaScript) and that I already know so well. To me CoffeScript, like Mike Hopley said, does not solve a problem to experienced JS developers, rather creates one.

    The same with RUBY, sorry, but I already am familiar with the classic, clear and easy C/C++ syntax, I don’t want to learn a new weird syntax just because is the “new hot”, so, I always shun away from projects in Ruby, I use PHP, sorry.

    To survive in this business and still have a life, the best solution with all this (languages, frameworks, methods, etc) is, like Mike said again, to pick your favorites and say no to the rest. I prefer to master a few then know few of a bunch, unless you are a modern polymath or something like that. So just pick your best and master them and keep loyal to them, and let go only if the new stuff really needs to be learned, otherwise, keep using your old C++ and JS and long live!

    • http://webkohder.net Sara

      So I just went and looked at CoffeeScript. This is my first time hearing about it, and well…

      Oh my god I don’t even… what kind of horrific OCD spawned THAT? *lol*

      Yeah, my beef with WP frameworks like Thesis and such is similar. I think Chris Coyier (or some similar guru) had a great article on it once, about how it supposedly simplifies things for non-developers but has such a huge learning curve that people end up hiring developers to create the child themes anyway. Then the developer has to learn a whole new, proprietary system for doing something they already know how to do the regular way!

      If there’s a framework or similar that takes lots of the usual steps out of development, I love it, but often you can roll your own and then have the benefit of knowing it inside and out.

  • http://www.amberweinberg.com Amber Weinberg

    The web world is tough to keep up with, and I found that I did have to start at the beginning when I took a couple years off in college, but it also sounds like you’re spreading youself way too thin. This is why I advocate specializing in one or two languages. Is it really necessary to keep up with that many js frameworks and hacks? That many languages? Perhaps you’re making it harder than it has to be :)

  • http://www.wanged.com Charles Wang

    I always feel like I’m behind the pack and constantly learning new things all the time. It can be both frustrating and exciting at the same time. I’ve only been doing web development seriously for 6 months at an internship I acquired while attending graduate school. I really enjoyed reading your article and I think most people who want to learn more not just because of their job, but rather the satisfaction they get from learning something really cool. I personally experience with programming started 2 years ago writing my first C++ program, but I gravitated towards web development so I decided to read some books and find some tutorials. Along came Nettuts… I have been an avid reader since a year ago. I learn by example and I really enjoy watching the casts on iTunes.

    I do feel that I’m always starting over and at a very rapid pace. I’ve been learning a lot of different programming languages through school and at my internship. Originally I started off developing in PHP, but now I’ve moved on to becoming a Ruby on Rails developer, which I totally love now. There is always some hot new framework or language coming out, but when push comes to shove you just have to be an expert in a particular field.

    Personally, if I did take a year off I would feel like I’m behind the curve, especially in web development because its constantly changing and growing. However, I chose this field because its not boring and you get to play around with cool things like jQuery, Github, and CSS3.

  • Bryce Pelletier

    Mr. Way,

    To be honest I am the anti-dogmatic developer. In fact I am 30 in just a couple weeks and three years ago was forced to choose a new career. You see, I was an electrician for nearly 11 years and had several surgeries on a “service-connected” disability which ended the electrical career. At that time I had 4 children and we lived on my sole income- and we still do, plus one child. SO to answer your questions:

    How do you deal with the constant progression of our industry, and the understanding that, if you take a year off, you’ll feel obsolete?

    I simply learn everything as quickly as I can. I strive everyday to burn my 8 hour day job learning to code better, WHILE I code. Then every night while I finish my degree (B.A. Interactive Media and Web Design) I push the envelope of what I know in order to go beyond anything that the classes teach (which so far has been very little code, flippin crap I tell ya). After that I continue to read your tutorials as well as others from all over the web, where I have found that some tutorials are better left alone due to the cruddy content.

    Knowing what it took to get where you are today, would you be willing to start all over, if the clock was rolled back?

    Heck Yeah! I love my job. The fact that each site and each media piece requires a plan, methods to achieve said plan, design, development and mathematics all in one ball of wax is the draw for me. Everyday I feel like I engineer my own little piece of the internet and everyday I learn that there is another way to have gotten the results. Some ways are better than others and some ways are beyond my grasp, but hell – not for long.

    Why do you read Nettuts+ every day?

    Yeah I feel a bit like a leach. I try to suck every piece of information possible from any respectable source. Tuts plus is an amazing environment to learn in, specifically nettuts for me but I have frequented many of the other portions of the tutsplus network. So really the biggest reason is that a VAST majority of the information on nettuts pertains to what I need to learn and I can trust that the information is not hack work.

  • Jacen

    Hey there,

    My name is Jacen, I’ve been pursing this damn industry for three years now. I’m 32, I have a wife (just the one), two kiddos, own a house have a full time job, go to school and maintain a website for another company part time. Even with all that I find that I still geek out over learning a new language. I think you hit on something when you mentioned passion. Passion is absolutely necessary when it comes to what we do and if you don’t have it then you aren’t going to cut it as a designer/developer.

    I honestly couldn’t imagine disconnecting for a year but to me its cool if I fell behind. I know I would do anything I had to to catch up and I don’t think I would feel obsolete at all, just behind but that’s normal anyway. ;)

    If I HAD to start over I totally would in a heart beat. This goes back to that passion thing and in a sense I think any developer worth his/her salt is starting over whenever, as you said, wrap your mind around a new technique but especially when stepping out of your comfort zone and learning a new language.

    As for your last conclusion question, there are a plethora of reasons that I read this blog, you guys are like w3schools on crack as far as I am concerned and there is just so much great content here about how to learn all the heavy hitters when it comes to code that I would be an idiot not to check this site daily. You help me catch up where I need to and keep up where it’s important. Without this blog I am sure I would not be where I am now in my learning process.

    Now when it comes to being husband/father/student/etc and finding time to learn I basically have no social life whatsoever so there you go. Seriously though there is a lot of communication and respecting of time, there are a but ton of late nights working after the kids go to sleep. Sometimes I myself wonder how it all happens, I guess part of it is finding some sort of rhythm that makes sense and the other part is just day by day.

    Keep up the great work Jeff and be encouraged if for nothing more than when you talk to the average person about coding languages they think you are some sort of freakishly smart scientist or something because you may as well be talking about rocket science. ;)

    Cheers!

  • Callum

    I would disagree with your point about being ‘obselete’ if you were to take a break for a while. Yeah, there will be many new technologies around, but in any form of learning, there is a certain logic and understanding that you don’t forget, and it’s transferable. You would most definitely have an advantage over people starting out.

    I highly doubt that core technologies like HTML or Javascript are going to change that much, even in 5 years or so. Most of what we see on the web is an extension of these kinds of technologies, and my opinion is that, unless they were completely reworked in that space of time, you wouldn’t have to worry about having to learn everything again.

  • http://jamiebrewer.com Jamie

    First let me say, I feel like this everyday and sometimes it’s pretty depressing.

    1) I feel like if I took time off (a year) I may aswel quit altogether because of the amount of work it has taken to get where I am today. But I would probably push on in hopes of being good at what I do.

    2) I think I would start over if everyone else had to as well.

    3) Because I want and do learn something everyday!

    Great article Jeffery, but the fact that your 25 and I’m 29 makes this even more depressing for me considering your level of knowledge. Maybe it has something to do with having a wife, two kids and zero time in between (unless I don’t sleep of course).

    Thanks for the Post!

    • http://frankiejarrett.com Frankie

      Jamie, I know you could never just give up…or maybe I’d just beg you not to stop ;)

      1) If I had a year off I don’t think I’d fall far from the tree. I’d probably go find another job where I can make a difference by making things more beautiful, easy to use and solve problems. It’s hard to conceive taking a year off because I’d have to not be on the internet at all, otherwise I’d be wanting to know how new things work! haha

      2) I def would not! If everyone else had to start over that is like a free card to wipe your slate clean and get ahead. You know 80% of our peers would likely quit, so for those of us who stick around, you have an even more rare to find skill set — which, of course, equals dollars :)

      3) Ohhhh yea, couldn’t agree with you more, buddy…I even learn a lot of it from you! 8)

      //Frankie

  • http://carricraver.com Carri Craver

    Great article. Being new to web design and in my late 30s, I was wondering how everyone else did it. I spend hours 3-4 hours/6day/week learning and I feel like I may never have the skills I seem to need. But I keep plugging away. It is a relief to know that even people like you who make wonderful tutorials that I watch over and over still don’t know everything.

    And the one upside I have found to the breakneck pace of new advances is that when something new like HTML5 and CSS3 come out I can focus on those and be as good as anybody at those specific things. Just b/c someone has 10 years more design experience does not mean they know the latest things better than I do. I always try to balance that with improving my basic skills but it is nice to know that I can keep up in some areas.

  • http://designbykiltz.com Christy

    Very good article that paints my world perfectly for the last 10 years with a few exceptions. I dove into the internet pond in my mid 30′s & I was already married.

    With that said, would I start over? Absolutely! Why? Because I get bored with the run of the mill jobs where you seem to be on an endless treadmill. And, because a core of what I do is teach, (I enjoy seeing the lights come on where otherwise there was nothing but confusion in other peoples minds) it stretches my need to stay current – at least with the technologies that are now hitting the center of the road.

    It is challenging to keep up & I don’t have near enough time to be able to learn all the new things I’d like. Now when I get home my hubby likes to have a wife & not an additional computer for a companion :~). And somehow once you reach 40 your body decides that it does need sleep & puts up a bigger fight if it doesn’t get it.

    Because I don’t have the time for my own exploration I end up looking at new projects as the place to stretch my abilities & learn. I build on content management systems for the sanity of my clients so I’m mostly exploring CSS3, JQuery & HTML5.

    On stepping away & becoming obsolete… yes & no. Yes on what is on the edge of reality & becoming reality. Because new technology finds a way to become “standard” so fast. No – as others have said on your core technology. HTML4, CSS2, Javascript & the programming languages that have been around. They’re not going to change enough to get you lost. But you will miss out on the new explorations that are bringing fresh life to the web.

    Why do I follow this site? Even though I may not be able to take in the new technology, if I’m aware that it’s out there then it gives me the idea of “yes it can be done” — a new way instead of how I’ve been doing it. Great information! Great resource! [I've printed several articles from you to use in my classes]

    Thanks!

  • Amy

    “To those of you who have full-time jobs, wives (preferably just one), and children: how do you find time to continue learning? Or, maybe better put: when do you find the time? ”

    We’re not all men you know…You could have thrown in a husband there too.

    • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
      Author

      I put “Moms and Dads” in the heading above. But, the fact is: 99.8% of our readers are male.

  • Ben

    Ever notice how your favorite music artists rarely achieve the same level of “magic” in a new album a decade after they entered the music industry? Why is that?

    I think this is because bands work so hard to “break into the business” which usually means writing and performing music over and over again for years before they are recognized by the industry and public. Usually your best work goes into your first or second album. Most people are not endless fountains of great ideas, if they have a few, they are already ahead of most. Those great ideas go into your first album so you can break into the business.

    Oh and yes it’s hard keeping up with changes in the tech business, but then that’s what we get paid for. If it was an easy job to learn and do, the pay scales would suck.

  • http://www.saroverhees.be Saro

    I’ll just keep my answer short: I tend to focus on a very small part and leave the others behind. I think it’s quite impossible to stay up to date about bussines, design trends, coding, etc. at the same time.

    I don’t mind that I don’t know Ruby, JavaScript or too much about PHP. I’ll just hire someone who has specialised himself in that domain, while i’ll work out the things i’m focussed at learning more of.

  • cipro

    Great post I think it also depends on the niche you’re in. Sometimes a lot of the new stuff is not an absolute must have although this does not imply that one should ignore new trends but I think it is sometimes only necessary to keep abreast of only the most usefull trends to your niche. cipro

  • http://www.darkhousemedia.com Adam Jackett

    I’m already building things in CodeIgniter 2 even though it’s still in development, but I’m watching very closely the development of FuelPHP. I think that framework is going to be pretty awesome, being developed by a former Ellislab employee, a couple of CodeIgniter power users and contributions from the community. They’re taking the best ideas from all sorts of frameworks (a lot from Kohana) and adding in some of their own ideas. The only negative (sort of) at this point is that you must be running PHP 5.3+ because it uses namespaces.

    I’m married, 2 kids, full time job. I do my learning, well, now. I try to divide my “spare” time between everyone equally which includes myself. So in “my” time, I develop new things and I’m always reading the blogs, twitter, etc.to learn about new systems, techniques, libraries, etc. To be a real developer, you have to stay on top of it, so it comes with the territory. I know there are a lot of dinosaurs out there that are stuck in their ways and have no intention of upgrading their skillset. If you let things go too long, you’ll be left in the dust. One reason I want to stay current is if I ever wanted to go get a different job at another studio, I want to make sure I’m not telling them about all the old stuff I can do. Personally, I wouldn’t hire anybody who didn’t know the ins and outs of jQuery. I worked with a guy about 8 months ago who didn’t know anything about jQuery (although he was using it), and he didn’t know any PHP frameworks existed, nor did he understand the concept of MVC, so he built his own framework (which was terrible). He’s a dinosaur, stuck in his ways, not trying to learn new things, instead trying to invent things that already exist.

    Things are always going to get better. The cutting edge techniques we used 5 years ago are basically ancient now. We’re always looking for faster, easier, better solutions for our day to day development. I love learning new techniques. Faster development (usually) means faster money.

  • http://www.jimb0.com jimb0

    Great article, I have been wondering this myself, as my RSS feeds pile up. But for web dev, we’re in a big new learning period as we are all needing to learn html5/css3 and also things like developing for mobile and devices. It’s daunting. I also spent the first 6 years of my career with Flash technology, and now people are trying to kill it. But I would say the skills you learn with Flash are transferrable to other technologies, and I’ve been working with a lot of other technologies in the last 5 years.

    Have you seen some of the latest job postings? Everyone needs a ‘rockstar’ developer with at least a few years of experience. And then they list every technology acronym known to man as a requirement. It’s kinda funny.

    I think the trick is to incorporate new stuff into every project you do, even if it’s just a little thing here or there. And if you have time, work on some personal projects. I find if you want to learn something, you’ll need an actual project to do it with. If you read an article on the web, you’ll think “I’ll remember this in my head”, but you may not. Great dicussion!

  • http://www.rolug.ro Armin

    Spot on!

    How do you deal with the constant progression of our industry, and the understanding that, if you take a year off, you’ll feel obsolete?

    It’s sometimes unnerving, but I like having to be up to date (keeps me sharp), as opposed to most other professions. Help keep a no-bullshit attitude

    Knowing what it took to get where you are today, would you be willing to start all over, if the clock was rolled back?

    Most definitely. I’ve had so many awesome (and terrifying) experiences, wouldn’t want to change that (well, maybe I’d skip Director).

    Why do you read Nettuts+ every day?
    RSS, so not every day and only the articles that are in my specialty.

  • http://www.ajvweb.fi Aapo Virta

    I can only talk about my own experience, but as a 2-month old girls dad, at least my time’s been pretty limited after the birth. I can do a bit of learning/studying on the job, but not that much. Still, I want to stay on top on what’s happening. I’ve chosen to just mostly read about the new stuff. With good feeds (like this) on my blog reader I at least have a feeling that I’m getting to know about all the good stuff that’s being invented. I really don’t have the time to actually try any of those, but when you’ve some experience in coding/programming, most of the time you get the idea and understand the pros/cons of the new stuff. And when there’s a chance to implement some new cool thing in a work project, then I learn and read about it more.

    After all, you simply can’t master all of the web technologies, no chance, but I think it’s possible to keep up the knowledge of which technologies are coming, which are here to stay and which are on the way out.

  • http://braincube.us/ max

    This is true, you need constant learning, but that’s what makes this job a hell lot more interesting. You can always say “Hey i’m a bit smarter now! I know how to use CSS3 transitions!” etc.

    As for me i’ve got a folder in my browser bookmarks called “read” where i put all interesting articles for later investigation. And a folder called “best” to store the very best technics.

    And of course you cannot learn everything, you just select the most interesting aspects of work and focus on them. Try to become a CSS or JavaScript expert. Maybe i’m wrong, but this scheme works good enough for me.

    • Greg

      I think everybody in this business has his/her own “read later” folder/bookmarks, I have a BUNCH of bookmarks for “read later”, there are so many that I don’t know what to do with all of them. The same with the RSS feeds, I follow a lot: nettuts, psdtuts, webdesigntuts, smashingmagazine and more… it never ends.

      The problem is that we want to (AND MUST) know everything: photoshop, flash, JS, HTML5, CSS3, jQuery…. is just to much, master all of those things require infinite time or an IQ of at least 180. Why must? well, the reality is that if you don’t know all of those things you will just be left behind; you’ll just simply not be at the level of current trends and designs. For exmpl, if you don’t know how to build a Web 2.0 site today (gradients, reflections, cool icons, jQuery effects) you’ll just be “old news”, so a new developer must learn photoshop, illustrator, design theory, html and CSS just to begin…

      And then… there’s the people introducing new things incrementing that huge list of things to learn: Ruby (no thanks), CoffeScript (no thanks), FuelPHP (no thanks), and the same happens year after year.

      I’ve been in this business for 8 years, reading and learning every f*kcing day non-stop, 7 days a week, I can’t count the number of books I’ve read on every topic and I still feel I can’t compete, there’s always some kind of, idk how to say it, insecurity maybe, inside of every design/project I make.

      Initially I opted to learn just a few (php, jquery, codeigniter and Joomla) and screw the rest, but the reality is that some clients want things in WordPress, Ruby, etc, and I have lost potential clients because of that… so what can we do???

      God, help us….

  • http://frankiejarrett.com Frankie

    Great thoughts, Jeffrey. Thanks for sharing.

    I guess I’ve always seen this industry as the vehicle to accomplish my primary desires in life:

    1. Live for Jesus
    2. Provide for my family
    3. Help others
    4. Satisfy my passion for problem solving, making beautiful things and gaining knowledge

    Honestly, I would do anything that enables me to do those four things! For some strange reason, I’m just attached to web technology – maybe because it’s so clear that it’s the future, and who doesn’t like knowing a little about the future? Right? :)

    //Frankie

  • http://www.code-pal.com Sumeet Chawla

    I loved programming. Hence, took up computer as my primary line of education. I started learning various languages (with C being still my favourite). Then I started developing applications on the VB.NET framework. As I was still in college, my projects didn’t get any exposure. I wanted to share it with everyone, learn along with them and most importantly feel the satisfaction that the person using the application liked it or was really helped by it.

    This crave for satisfaction lead me to the web development world where anyone can access my projects. There is no boundary. Once, I stepped foot, I discovered that how vast it was. But instead of being scared by it, I got excited. Thanks to tons of sites out there like nettuts, css-tricks, smashingmag etc. the pace of learning the technology became pretty easy.

    Though I would have to admit that pursuing one’s master degree and work along side is a very hard thing to manage. My course is not web development oriented only and covers a lot of other stuffs. So to find time to learn with respect to my work and also study for my course is very difficult. There are times when I lag behind and my list of ‘to-do’s’ keep increasing. But this doesn’t decrease my excitement. :) This industry has a different passion altogether. If one has that passion in oneself, then it doesn’t matter if the learning curve is a perpendicular, one will enjoy each and every minute of it.

  • Yuri

    This industry is overwhelming most of the time, if I would have known what it was like I would have rather have went to school to work in the medical field, such as being a surgeon. It takes just as much time to learn this stuff as learning to be a doctor. Doctors do have to always learn, but it is learning that is worthy of the time and effort. It is a joke anymore, half of the time I don’t research any of the technology. I just will use WordPress and plugins, focusing on one aspect is most important, I would still rather just rather get a regular job than any of this web stuff anymore. Maybe everyone should just run there site off of Facebook. The WWW is ADD.

  • Greg

    Enjoyed the article and as someone who’s come to the web late in life with no background in a IT I’d make this observation about web development as an occupation.
    It’s a very immature sector, not because the main player’s are young, thats a good thing but no ones too sure what’s going to happen next so they try to stay on top of everything, an impossible task.
    In most other business sector’s, people specialise after acquiring general knowledge and I think this is starting to happen rapidly in web development.
    The key will be choosing what to specialise in.
    The day’s of small players making a living building brochure sites, or open source CMS’s, by hacking templates and cutting and pasting code are probably numbered, eventually client’s will become more sophisticated about what they need and demand more than most small operator’s can provide.
    Learning is a non stop process today, no matter what the field, accept that or wither on the vine.

  • Laura

    Awesome Post. In answer to your questions…

    I learn as fast as I can. Right now I am dealing with the laptop in bed syndrome…and currently my laptop has been kidnapped by the geeksquad so…I’m stuck on a desktop. I’m going crazy right now.

    I’ve been toying with this industry since I was 13…and officially started my career in it about 3 years ago now. So I guess yes I would go back to start over if I could. Maybe hopefully catch on to things quicker, be smarter in how I learn and what I do with it…

    And unfortunately I don’t get the opportunity to get on nettuts everyday, but I enjoy coming here when I can, because I know I’m not the only on in the world with these problems.

  • Seasoned Developer

    “Perhaps, when you’re young, you’re open to new ideas, and question the status quo. ”

    My impression is, that many (not all) of the younger developers are hyperenthusiastic and chase every hype.

  • http://philtune.com Phil Tune

    Been coding, designing and developing for 15 years. I don’t work with bleeding-edge technology on a daily basis (I’m a front-end dev for a small student loan servicer), though I feel I’m constantly in the forums soaking up every aspect of every new spec. I feel much of the time like the web dev world has passed me by and has set me out on the ice flow… I’m only 27. I find it increasingly depressing to watch “Social Network” or read “Stealing Myspace” without feeling like I’ve passed my prime intellectually and creatively. Isn’t that ridiculous?

    It’s important to recall all that we’ve accomplished, as, we do hold a pretty hefty knowledge base that 99.9% of people aren’t even aware exists. We can engineer tools the general public couldn’t even fabricate. And most of this knowledge we’ve been able to gain just in our free time. This should give us a well-earned sense of prestige and self-awareness.

    Luckily I have a wonderful wife who knows how to pull my laptop plug once she starts seeing Matrix code lines in my eyes. She knows I beat myself up over this very subject, and she gives me very timely perspective when it counts.

    • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
      Author

      Well put, Phil. :)

  • Mittt

    i just love nettuts+ .. so much love from india to u

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