Web developers/designers: What level are you?

I reckon thats a little silly... I checked out the link you posted and the CSS one... I'd put myself at Level 5 for each... but can't say 6 cause I haven't got a book :D

I guess job title would be: Web Developer, but I always feel like i'm learning new stuff everyday sooooo... you can never know everything about those two languages and if you do... time to learn the next :)
 
Probably about 4/5, though neither fit me exactly. I only code in Notepad++ and have never touched Dreamweaver or any other similar editor; I simply use a browser to preview as I go along.

And I'm not a programmer/coder at all... I'm an account manager in the creative sector.
 
half way between 4 and 5.

It's as though they just missed a group out here though. It kind of goes from keen amateur to hardcore professional.

My job has nothing to do with web development. My current job does involve me developing technical areas and processes within our department but that is a side task and not my main job.
 
Beyond 6 - I don't care anymore about markup. I don't even write my own markup, I use frameworks like Seaside and Cappuccino (with Atlas) to do it for me. My time and effort is not wasted on semantics and petty quabbles about markup, I am now fully concentrated on application design and implementing the design without concern over semantics at all, and I let those who still care to design the specs.

;)
 
howthe said:
It's as though they just missed a group out here though. It kind of goes from keen amateur to hardcore professional.
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Indeed, the leap from 5 to 6 is, well, a bit of a stretch. But to be fair the author did point out that it wasn't something to be taken too seriously.

Thanks for the replies, folks. :)

I posed the questions as I was curious to know if there were any salaried developers left who were less than 'Level 5' [There can't be many now, surely?]. I also wanted to roughly gauge the level of the average salaried designer, and whether the number of designers who also do front-end coding was on the increase. Though it has since occurred to me that there are more developers than designers frequenting this forum, but hey: it's a straw poll, not a census.

Jestar: :D *bows in deference*
 
Dj_Jestar said:
Beyond 6
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Beyond 6? Blimey! You must either either Tim Berners-Lee or Al Gore. Either way, it's nice to have someone of your stature on these forums![Unless you are Al Gore, in which case you can **** ***!]

I'm generally a 5, but as others have said, there are some big jumps there. There will be a few dozen people in the world who are generally a 6 - I reckon they won't be hanging around here though. That said, I could be sub-level 3 because I don't know how to use spacer GIFs...

They are seriously missing a level 5.5: Those who have learnt so much about HTML that they have passed beyond Guru into Psychotic-Eccentric - they tend to use Mosaic as their UA, they will have JavaScript and possible images disabled and are genuinely convinced that they can sense changes in the Matrix. Unfortunately, these guys are so warped that they can't actually develop usable sites or applications because writing one line of markup is followed by a year-long discussion about some minor sub-section of the W3C specification. Just try posting an 'Is validation really necessary?', or better still, a 'OMFG - Fluid layout suxxors!!' in the c.i.w.a.html group on USENET.

Simisker said:
I posed the questions as I was curious to know if there were any salaried developers left who were less than 'Level 5' [There can't be many now, surely?]. I also wanted to roughly gauge the level of the average salaried designer, and whether the number of designers who also do front-end coding was on the increase. Though it has since occurred to me that there are more developers than designers frequenting this forum, but hey: it's a straw poll, not a census.
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I'm sure a big chunk of productive and worthwhile developers are between 4 & 5. Just have a look on the intertubes; things have improve a lot over the last 5 years, but that vast majority of new builds are XHTML Transitional! As for designers, I have a feeling (but only that) that the number of proper designers who code are shrinking. I think people have realised that coding an UI design are two different disciplines and that perhaps requires two different people - the exception is in smaller organisations where they don't have this luxury and one guy has to fulfil both roles.

But I reckon the biggest bloc is people like my brother-in-law who offers website builds to his clients. He knows nothing about HTML or CSS, or webstandards and accessibility, or the higher arts of photoshop for that matter. But he'll rattle of a new site with Frontpage, Dreamweaver or whatever and will get paid for it by and equally unenlighted customer. Most websites are still built by people who really don't know the basics.
 
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I would put myself at a 5 though I'm not too anal about things. I follow semantics, accessibility and create valid code but I won't lose sleep wondering if I could have created a layout using one less div. I don't spend ages coming up with class names. I name it for what it is. Also, I find myself always using unordered lists even they should be ordered.
Job Title: Creative Director/Front End Dev.
 
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cjmUK said:
Beyond 6? Blimey! You must either either Tim Berners-Lee or Al Gore. Either way, it's nice to have someone of your stature on these forums![Unless you are Al Gore, in which case you can **** ***!]
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Almost as much sarcasm as me. I like it :D

No, my answer was a petty jibe to point out that worrying about semantics when there are plenty of tools out there to do that for you is inefficient. Developers and designers like to be efficient, so.. :)
 
Dj_Jestar said:
Almost as much sarcasm as me. I like it :D

No, my answer was a petty jibe to point out that worrying about semantics when there are plenty of tools out there to do that for you is inefficient. Developers and designers like to be efficient, so.. :)
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I know what you mean, and largely I agree. We stopped developing in assembly language once we had gained trust in some high level languages; likewise who develops extensively in Javascript these days? There are so many proven frameworks out there, why re-invent the wheel?
 
I don't really think this guys knows what his talking about to be honest.

Then he marked backend developers as level 2 which is odd. Because i guarantee back end developers actually know more about about XHTML and HTML then the people who just work in it, for the for presentation side of things.

I bet this guy sends malformed XHTML as html because he doesn't understand mime yet, or the fact ie6 can't correctly read xhtml.

Mime types are more a backend thing though.
 
Level 9 Mage. I think about the frameworks in my sleep, and my bio-pet assembles them while I dream. My dream then interacts with the framework to print out a holographic model in my head, which I superimpose onto the backend language when I wake up.

I have a nice detailed knowledge of HTML but don't spend all day talking about which tag to use. Um, I know the difference between ol and ul?
 
Firmly encroached in Level 4, however I'm reaching out the feelers to level 5 every now and then. :p

There's so much I want to learn this year. I've got my head around XHTML and CSS pretty well now so the logical progression for me in 2009 would be to polish all that up but also branch out and learn something new. I'm thinking php would be a good start.

And I know it wont take long to pick up but I want to have a bash at CMS this year too.

Had a brief look at Joomla last year but really didn't have too much time to commit to learning it inside out. That is on my "to do" list for 2009 as well. :cool:

Job title is "Firefighter" by the way. I dabble in a small part time web design business on my rota days off. :cool:
 
Draeger said:
I'm thinking php would be a good start.
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I would agree this is the natural progression from XHTML/CSS to XHTML/CSS & PHP. :) I want to make that move myself this year.

Draeger said:
And I know it wont take long to pick up but I want to have a bash at CMS this year too.

Had a brief look at Joomla last year but really didn't have too much time to commit to learning it inside out. That is on my "to do" list for 2009 as well. :cool:
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I used Plone at Uni for a web dev module, then used it again as part of my final year project. Have had some very brief experience with Joomla and Drupal but not enough really. I'd like to get some more and mess around with them. Just I've not much of an imagination so I can't think of what to use a CMS for. :p:(
 
I don't really know or care, I'm solution based. I like to think that what I do makes a difference not how or why. Any talk of levels is pointless surely? I think the right way, that's what makes me good at what I do :)
 
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