Successful developers all have something in common: the desire to create. To fully realize that creativity, they need to continually improve their skills. The web industry has grown from this desire to learn. You only need to look at the unwavering demand for conferences, workshops and training days for evidence of this.
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It’s that time of year again: graduation, when students transition away from the classroom to what will hopefully be a long and successful career in their chosen industry. I recently said goodbye to some of my own website design and development students. Instead of teaching lessons in design principles or responsive websites, I spent our final evening together answering their questions. One of those questions was, “What is the best career advice you’ve ever received?”
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Just over four years ago, I decided to take a part-time position teaching website design and front-end development at a local university, the University of Rhode Island. My time in the classroom has been one of the most challenging as well as one of the most rewarding experiences in my career, and I believe that other Web professionals would greatly benefit from spending some time in an educational setting teaching others their craft.
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A while back, I wrote a post about starting an open-source project. The focus of that article was on starting an open-source project as an individual. I received a lot of positive feedback and also some questions about how the process changes when you’re open-sourcing a project at work.
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During my career as a software developer and manager, I have been involved in many interviews. Whether the interviewer or interviewee, I have always paid special attention to the interview process.
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The Web is evolving rapidly. Front-end Web development has been majorly affected by recent changes in coding techniques and approaches. In 2003, a competent front-end Web developer would have known HTML and CSS, possibly with a bit of copy-and-pasted JavaScript, and they built websites that would be viewed on desktop computers.
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Moving on from your current job or stepping out into the real world once you’ve completed your studies can be daunting. Taking time to do a little preparation goes a long long way. If you come across the perfect job, you will need to portray yourself in the best possible light to show that you are the right person for the position.
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Have you ever wanted to take a client by the collar, shake them around vigorously and demand that they take you seriously because you are the expert?
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In recent years there has been a move away from generalist Web designers to specialists such as content strategists, user experience architects and front-end coders. Where once there was a single job, there are now many, with ever-narrower spheres of responsibility.
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We recently turned to our beloved followers on Twitter—as we like to do from time to time—to help us demonstrate one of the greatest things about the online design community: its willingness and eagerness to pay knowledge forward. We asked our friends in the community to share their favorite design tip with us, and they responded en masse. There were so many fantastic responses that we felt it would have been a wasted opportunity if we didn’t compile them for our readers and discuss them with the community at large.
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