Comments on: A Great Web Developer is a Great Application Developer

By: A great Web developer is a waste of a really great application developer. : Pain and Glory of the IT World

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:08:54 +0000

[...] Kono recently wrote about how the most talented Web developers are usually also the most talented application developers. I propose that we take it a step further: a great Web developer is usually a superb application [...]

By: James

James — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:33:55 +0000

I think a web developer has to be an application developer and more. They need to know how to program in order to construct the server side code, then they are also required to know the client side aspect of it (html, css, javascript) which can be very challenging. In my experience application developers make lousy web developers and web developers hate doing application development.

By: Pfff… I could make a website, big deal.

Pfff… I could make a website, big deal. — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 19:39:53 +0000

[...] A Great Web Developer is a Great Application Developer 23 Comments, Comment or Ping [...]

By: Koen Deforche

Koen Deforche — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 08:06:29 +0000

For those that agree (and I certainly do), perhaps you should take a look at a C++ GUI web toolkit to build web applications ?

Using Wt, you can skip all the CGI/forms/javascript/ajax/html jungle and instead go about a GUI application like you were used to (on the desktop).

See: http://www.webtoolkit.eu/wt

Regards,
koen

By: Adam

Adam — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 19:46:37 +0000

The word developer implies you write logic to manipulate data. The word designer implies you write logic to make things look good. If you are a web developer, you are one who creates logic to manipulate data across the internet. An application developer is one who creates logic to manipulate data on the desktop and/or internet. Writing some HTML and coding some CSS does not make you a web developer. However, writing PHP to output the HTML does, albeit, a low lever developer.

@Michi – Good article, I think most of what you say holds true.
@Marcus – Sorry bud, but I think you took a left somewhere when you should have taken a right. What is your background anyhow?

By: Michi

Michi — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 01:57:01 +0000

I dunnno, Ben… You should check out the really cool database abstraction class I wrote in pure HTML.

By: Ben Cecka

Ben Cecka — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 23:48:10 +0000

Marcus – Your point really does seem to come down to a difference of semantics. HTML is basically analogous of a GUI. Would you call someone that designs a GUI a software developer? Probably not. By the same token, I wouldn’t call myself a web developer if all I did was write the GUI and no backend logic.

I think it’s pretty clear through the context of this post that we aren’t talking about making a web page with notepad or a WYSIWYG though. We’re looking at actual software design that is built to use HTML as its GUI.

By: So a web developer & app developer walk into a bar… « tomnipotent

So a web developer & app developer walk into a bar… « tomnipotent — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 21:51:51 +0000

[...] August 9th, 2007 A Great Web Developer is a Great Application Developer [...]

By: Marcus

Marcus — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 21:04:32 +0000

I don’t believe that I said word one about PHP. I don’t care what language you are working in the main differentiator of a web-app is the web. But then again, I have yet to see any non-web PHP apps that are widely used, so this is particularly apt for PHP. The main interface that the user operates with in a web app is program generated HTML code (and probably javascript, but that’s a bit different). I don’t think that saying that is a knock on anyone. If you don’t generate HTML code that is delivered over HTTP, you aren’t writing a web-app… so in this regard, PHP is really only used for web-apps.

My point was simply this: you don’t have to program to be a ‘web’ developer. Being a web developer implies that you can create HTML pages (Not-PHP pages). This could be done in notepad, with just a knowledge of HTML.

However, you do have to be a good programmer to be a good ‘web-app’ developer. The _app_ being the key part. In case this wasn’t clear: this was the semantic difference that I meant when I said I disagreed for a semantic reason. Web-apps are no different than any other application in this regard… you have to know what you’re doing or you’ll end up with a jumbled mess of code. On this I think we agree… I was just trying to point out that you don’t have to write an ‘application’ as a backend for a web site (and therefore be a ‘web’ developer).

By: zed23 » Blog Archive » Interesting Reads

zed23 » Blog Archive » Interesting Reads — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 17:20:25 +0000

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