The Front-end development:
I used to be a back-end developer working with Java and PHP last 10 years (I still remember that boring purple color from PHP website), :P.
I was looking for something else, something to get exited to do. Something more dynamic: Ajax was a very good start.
Changing the people minds was hard. People were constantly asking me about: “What is a Front-end developer?”. I think that was the beginning of my evangelisation.
“I decided to go on client-side 5 years ago, and was a good decision”
The Mobile Web development or Desktop Web Development:
Why and Developing for ‘mobile web’ or ‘web-apps’ could be similar as ‘desktop’ and we are using the same technologies, but is not the same.
I did have the chance to start working on a Mobile Web project, and since then I have been working as a freelance Front-end developer for the last 5 years, working with javaScript, CSS and HTML focus on Mobile Web since the iPhone was released on UK, I have been working on cool products like: Nokia OVI Maps, peugeot.fr, flirtomatic.co.uk, orangeexposure12011.mobi and many others mobile projects.
Cutting edge Technologies and the culture of innovation:
I can’t believe the technologies evolved so fast on just 5 years!. On that time, I used to code using different DTD’s, no frameworks, no libraries, simple XHTML-MP and W-CSS, with luck some of the CSS2.1 and manually testing the code on the very beginning and later on using Device Anywhere or some others simulators. Very interesting specially on low-end devices. I used to use WURF or Device Atlas to detect the user-agent and adapt the code to the user device.
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most “responsive” to change.
The Responsive Web Design development and Future Friendly ideas:
When I read the Ethan’s article that 25 of May of 2010, that blew my mind about what I was thinking about Mobile Web, my Point Of View of every project radically changed. The world was changing: BlackBerry RIM adopted WebKit for the very first time. That was for me another huge change, I was exited when I discover the news, you can see all the high-end devices became smartPhones and with them the HTML5 standart Then on 2011, Luke Wroblewski released the book of Mobile First and Brad Frost started with the Future Friendly ideas. That was a YAY! moment, when I said yes, this is what I was looking for. I totally understand the importance of the content, undertand what I have been doing wrong for the last 10 years and why Mobile First, Progressive Enhancement and Responsive Web Design needs to be on the same pack. All comes together.
“In the end, being a Front end developer is like surfing on the ocean of technologies.”
Meanwhile HTML5 became more and more common, jQuery releases the Mobile version, CSS3 and CSS preprocessors became something cool and ‘must have’ and javaScript ECMAscript 5 became posible on many many modern browsers also them are including new debugging extension tools. Moreover Remote debugging it is a blessing for testing your product and Automatic Remote Unit-test on several different devices is the most!
“The Web doesn’t have a fixed width. Our technologies need to sense the environment in unison and adapt to a design, not to a device.”
I did have the opportunity to implement these cutting-edge technologies and create Future Friendly solutions. Was hard to be and evangelist of these ideas and convince teams, Project Managers and even companies, how were uses to other methodologies, to implement these technologies.
I did my evangelisation, and I need to admit is very hard to convince people to change their mind about methodologies and development philosophies sometime I was feeling like Marty McFly saying: “You May Not Be Ready For This Yet, But Your Kids Are Gonna Love It“, in the end I managed to get their attention and finally they understood the value of all these new ideas.
I have been working on very on high traffic projects like: BBC Homepage, SKY NowTV and few others, and for the last 3 years I have been non-stop working within ‘Responsive Websites’ projects the whole time also creating my own ideas about RWD images and RWD framework on my spare time.
Even better, last year I had the lucky chance to shared some ideas on the JSconf (Buenos Aires) and ScotlandJS (Edinburgh)
“Now everybody knows what Responsive Web Design is. Finally Mobile Web is not consider the second screen anymore, and I love it.”