The Answer to All Web-Dev Problems

Is it just me or has the amount of unqualified "web designers" increased drastically in the last decade? On any web design forum you can find posts by people that have some how sold web design jobs that don't have the slightest clue how the basic foundation works. There's people that don't know why the code they are using works (or doesn't) who rely on the people who reply to their panic-stricken posts for answers. As someone professionally trained and certified in web design I find this new phenomenon hilarious. Imagine trusting your company's web presence to the hands of someone who has no clue what they are doing. Following 10 tutorials from a kid in India on web design won't make you an expert, professional, or in a position to offer such a skilled trade to others for a price. As a business owner, when you come across these leeches offering to build a website for less, know that you will get what you pay for. Can you imagine hiring someone who says they're an electrician to wire your house knowing that they have only followed a few Youtube videos and have no license, qualifications, or real world experience aside from a Wordpress blog?

Next time you meet a "web designer" do yourself and the entire industry a favor: Ask them for qualifications and many examples.

I'm amazed by the patience of the professionals on here that tirelessly answer the same questions about why some basic html or css won't work.

Our design associates have degrees and certs. The answer to "Why doesn't my site work correctly" is: Get a degree and/or complete a professional certification course. Then you will know what you are doing and why.

 

Sounds like learn the full circuit of the TV before watching the program.

 

Sure, everyone can appreciate the web regardless of their understanding. I appreciate T.V. but I'm not going to have the audacity to sell myself to you as a T.V. repair man who doesn't having the training. It's a matter of integrity in the industry. That's the difference.

 

I fail to see how a degree or course or sertification should tell anything about the quality of the designer. There is so much crap being taught today, I would definitely have a look at specific projects/webpages the person/company has done - problem is, most customers have no qualifications to decide whether or not the work done is good - all they see is how it looks, which has nothing to do with anything.

 

I disagree with the "Get a degree" part as most of the career educators I've encountered are also talking out their arse. They don't cover progressive enhancement, they don't emphasize semantics or non-visual targets first, and they -- like their students -- generally know dick-all about accessibility norms. You DARE to mention the "WCAG" the normal response either being "what's that" or them throwing a conniption fit over it being "too limiting in what I can do visually".

A lot of the problem simply stems from the "appearance first" attitude... dicking around drawing goofy pictures in photoshop is NOT design, that's graphic arts. To be WEB design you have to know about dynamic fonts, elastic layout, semi-fluid layout, graceful degradation, emissive colourspace and how it relates to colour contrasts. DESIGN is engineering... engineering involves specifications and tolerances.

NOT that HTML 5 has made things much better, their removing anything remotely resembling being authoritarian. Instead of saying how it SHOULD be done, the ALLEGED "specification" now simply documents what CAN be done... and that's a pretty flawed attitude and why I'm making air quotes like a second rate Doctor Evil around "specification" when it comes to HTML 5. "Laser"... "Alan Parsons Project"... "Preparation H"...

But then I'm an old school IT guy, who when coming into the industry did so at a time where the people coming out of the colleges only knew mainframe stuff making them USELESS in the microcomputer age. We're talking an industry where on the hardware side 3 years is obsolete, 5 years is the scrap heap -- calling into question what the hell good a 4 year program is, much less when schools ALWAYS lag behind the private sector by a DECADE or more!

I've rarely encountered a career educator for any computer technical field who was actually qualified to flap their gums on the topic they are teaching. While there are some big name exceptions to this (Nicholas Wirth for example) the vast majority are little more than leeches upon the teat of society, packing their students full of manure.

 

Degrees serve only ONE purpose - To show a prospective client/employer that you have COMPLETED a course of some kind. They do NOT show the QUALITY nor the QUANTITY of the instruction in the course. Neither do they show what your COMPREHENSION level is of the subject nor whether you are CAPABLE of using what you have SUPPOSEDLY learned.

In other words, they are nothing more than a COMPLETION certification usually showing that you are an "EDUCATED IDIOT."

This gets back to what I have been telling people for over 40 years. A degree is a WASTE of time and money UNLESS it is a REQUIREMENT to advance, and often even when it is a requirement, it ELIMINATES the most qualified from advancing.

 

Depends on what the degree is, in what subject. I wouldn't, for once, go to a doctor without a medical doctor degree

 

At least here a degree is REQUIRED to become a medical doctor, so my statement still is valid in its entirety. Even though a degree is required for a medical doctor, it is STILL only evidence of COMPLETION of a course of study and NOT evidence of the QUALITY of services rendered by the doctor.

 

That is true, but that goes for any education. However, for some things it is however good to see that the person has done a bit of study. I do agree that for webdev a degree is mostly BS.

 

For most people, getting a website live is still rocket science. And they do want a website but they can't do it themselves.

So there's the lowest level of "web designers" that address this market need by offering poorly coded products to people who don't know how to even evaluate the quality of the work that has been done.

Sad but true.

But I disagree with the "get a degree" argument that dismissess all people who don't have a degree in computer science. I know a lot of people who can design a quality website and know all the tricks of the trade, yet they didn't learn it in college. It's not that difficult to learn HTML, CSS, PHP and MySQL, and even less difficult to learn how to work with Wordpress themes.

Degree is likely needed for real professional work with databases, security etc., but for a normal small website it is most definitely not a prerequisite.

 

And again - why is a degree needed for databases and/or security? Some of my friends work in world-reknown security firms, mostly because they have had a passion for hacking since they got a computer. Yes, of course they have a lot of titles by now, mostly related to specific course-work for Cisco and similar entities - but no real degree. Their experience and their knowledge and position is more than enough.

The point is that you can learn mostly anything related to computer science yourself. What a course does is teach you one way of doing something, and if you're lucky, it is the right way, or best way. Most often it's not, and what you learn is outdated by the time you get your degree. The benefits of doing such things is that you get assignments that you have to complete, which will give you something to work towards (it can be hard to teach yourself something you're not a 100% sure is gonna do what you want it to, or even get the idea to make something).

 

Well, that makes you smarter than most anti-vaxxers and home-birthers.

 

Oh, don't even get me started on the "alternative medicine" idiots. Anti-vaxxers, homeopathic morons, crystal healers... gimme a shotgun, and I'll make the world a bit smarter overall, k?

 

Well, everybody searches for cheap webdesigners. Let them get what they deserve.

 

a degree is a piece of paper to hang up. You can get a degree in just about anything, a true degree is a medical degree. Facebook, Microsoft the creators collage drop outs yet they are worth more than most people with a degree.