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Experience Design

Front End Development: CSS-centric or JS-centric

Recently, I was reading this article which came across my newsletter, outlining what Front end developers need to know for this year and beyond. What struck me was where the author talks about the growing gulf between those who focus on CSS and those who focus on javascript. Isn’t Front end development about both css and javascript? Lets not forget html! But what’s been mentioned is indeed true. Here is how I tend to see this pattern.

I started my career as a web developer and my daily source of bread involved taking a psd asset, slicing and dicing it and creating pixel perfect, browser compatible html and css using cool jQuery plugins to beautify the UI. And that’s where my interest towards javascript began. I got to know the basics, understood the different paradigms, kept track of its progress, introduced to the MV* frameworks, got to know node, the build tools, pre-processors, et al.I would say many of us peers share a similar career path. 

But there is another set of front end developers (or what do I call them) who solely focus on javascript and thanks to css frameworks (bootstrap, foundation, etc), writing css has never been so easy. They need not know the intricate differences between css2 and css3 nor how different browser engines interpret the css box model. They need not even support IE8. They are skilled and adept in the javascript MV* frameworks, node, the different build tools, good enough to create a web application. 

These two different breeds of front end development raises some very interesting questions. How should the former advance his career ? And should the latter fall back to learning basics of creating pixel perfect sites ? Or are there two different sets of Front end developers now ? One solely focusing on creating pixel perfect html, css and js while the other focusses on MV* frameworks. How should the corporations decide on hiring whom they need ? 

I personally feel if you are from either group, it is still important to know the basics of any fundamental technology you are working on, think from a broader perspective and be inclusive. What do you think ? 

Thoughts on “Front End Development: CSS-centric or JS-centric”

  1. Lisa McMichael

    I tend to agree with you Harish. Also, having some insight into the history of CSS and JS is a good practice too. Maybe this is a silly analogy, but I like that spell check (Word) just auto-fixes my typos, but the better solution is that I know when I’ve created a mispelled (lol) misspelled word and I know how to correct it. The point, it’s good to know something about the origin of ones’ craft and tools.

  2. What a unique perspective! And quite thought provoking for individuals in front end development.

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Harish Bhavanichikar

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