Forum Moderators: phranque
For me, it's a challenge, I just like building something that other people will view. It's almost like one of those "I did that" moments.
I also see it as very educational. When I bought my first internet pc within a week I was asking myself "how does internet stuff work?" within a fortnight I had a website.
So why do you like this crazy subject. :)
Mack.
Making Code that fits over a dozen standards, that works over almost any platform, that is flexable enough to easily be modified, secure enough not to get hacked, and compact enough so that it runs ver fast.
When you make the leap as I did from being a meer developer to becomming your own host you take a difficult task insane.
It takes a hell of a lot of guts and hard work to get everything perfect. You celebrate and enjoy it for 2-3 months, and then overhaul a major segment due to upgrades/security flaws/hardware failures/etc.
Why do you like web development.
From a web based application point of view; life is just so much easier - you discover a bug (or rather a user discovers a bug ;), you fix it, and you're done. No messing about with upgrades or patches!
The personal satifactions and achievement knowing that someone is having a look at what you have constructed, the maintenance of what you have built, keeping everything updated, it just becomes part of your everyday life (or it takes over your life one of the two)
ncw164x
I found this forum while as I was became interested in using AdSense.
What a refreshing bunch of people you are all.
When the WWW was started it was said that it was being used by 40 year old men and teen-age boys.
I was one of those 40-year-old men. We would all brain storm in news groups and chat rooms in those days.
People you had never met nor would never meet would offer advice and lend actual technical assistance to help you learn new apps, coding, design tips for what were then called Home pages.
Criticisms were limited to suggestions and advice because there were no real standards or rules.
Instead of flaming someone for using flashing fonts, or frames, or whatever, guys would offer subtle suggestions on why they considered them good or bad.
We were all polite to each other and usually all we would ask for was a reciprocal link.
Yahoo was free and soon became the premium Search Engine.
Things then began to change, Flaming and rudeness became more prevalent, Yahoo started charging and got too big
for their britches. (I wonder how long it will be for Google to follow that path.)
This forum reminds me of the old days. Appropriate on the last day of the year I guess.
Keep up the good work everyone.
Okay, I will be the first course one......MONEY!
This is the easiest way to make a buck known to man/woman.
It has some gratification in terms of creative ability.....but, it has lots more in terms of the bank balance ;)
It has some gratification in terms of creative ability.....but, it has lots more in terms of the bank balance ;)
Unfortuantely, money seems to be the driving factor for way too many sites, and design is somehow left in the dust. I'm not picking on you personally percentages, you just happened to bring up a good point.
The field of Architecture is very similar in that developers want nothing more than to make a buck, often at the expense of good design. That is why you see so many ugly, soul-less houses being built (at least here in the US). Sometimes people forget what the title of DESIGNER really implies. Good design shouldn't be an option, it should be a responsibility. Just my personal opinion.
I like coding by hand.
I scoff at wysiwygs and feel good about it.
I enjoy excelling at something that only a few people understand the intricacies of.
I like working alone and in the dark.
I enjoy stale pizza and cold coffee.
I'm a geek.
The real fun was inventing new ways to do things that a fixed application would have no trouble doing, like printing forms from the web, using barcodes over the web, and making reports in level breaks.. These puzzles are what really keep me going. How do I solve the puzzle? Once the puzzle is solved, and I actually have to pretty it up, it becomes a job again.
Learning how to build a webserver and maintain it was another challenge, which I could have easily avoided by remotely hosting. I learned to provide my own hosting and mail serving and ftp serving and learned about routing and firewall configuration and networking.
It's really all about the learning. The money is nice too. I identified a need right away and started working towards developing a product to fill it. Started selling it three years ago and it has been going well.
The immediacy is also a big plus, when I can have users/testers all over the country come up with an idea, I can roll that idea quickly to all my users without patches or new installations. I can offer truly free demos without worry about a customer using a pirate version or swapping serial numbers. When a bug is identified I can fix it quickly and roll the fix to all my users at once. The immediacy is a BIG selling point when I'm at a conference selling my product.
Plus, the web offers a level of communication and interaction that can't be matched elsewhere. One feature of my product is an event calendar. This isn't a big deal in and of itself, but when I show the customer that their calendar is accessible by interested parties over the web, they take notice. 24 hour accessibility is another selling point of web based software. My competitors, who still ship disks, install one product on one computer. My product runs anywhere at any time. And my customers like this.
I'm convinced that web-based applications are the future of software - and I'm glad to have learned how to do it.
Now I look forward to learning the new technologies like .NET and really driving this concept to the stars.
Mac
It all started when I met Archie Veronica and Gopher.You're really dating yourself with that one. I don't even remember what Veronica was use for. As it is, Archie and Gopher are distant memories. If it's any consolation, I used to chat with someone accross Bitnet at 300baud. But I digress...
Why do I like web development?
I find it an enjoyable way to make a buck. I found I'm a lousy pion; I need to be more-or-less my own boss.
I first started programing in 1979 by hanging out at a Radio Shack playing with a TRS-80 Model 1 Level 2 -- Z80, 1MHz, 16k ram (that's right only 16kilobytes--less than many Web pages), no floppy drive (never mind HD), text only, b/w diplay. In HS I took a computer class and when the teacher had the class program a rotating rectangle, I found it boring, so I did a cube. (The teacher was impressed.) In college I studied Computer and Information Sciences (luckly, just missing using punch cards), but some how profesionaly I ended up in hw support. I could never break into coding because I lacked experiance.
So when I receintly lost my job doing someting completly unrelated to my feild, I looked around at the local compitition and I didn't know if I should laugh or cry.
So now I'm my own boss and do coding like I enjoy doing(and some hw support, too). And since my fluency in the local language is still very poor (luckly I can usally get by because most people here speak some English), my earning potential is 5-10 times as much. So instead on half the average wage, I should be doing better than twice it.
Overheads? I run the equivalent of 1 large store out of a room and only have to worry about paying $20 +/- every year for the domains and $30 per month for a resellers account with all the sites on it.
Also, you don't need to be in an office to run a website. You can update a page from anywhere on earth as long as there's a computer with an internet connection nearby. Working from home is pretty good and one of the main reasons why I do web dev, far more relaxing to be on your own schedule and not a manager's. :-)
The fact when someone makes a change, it affects things now. This makes it a constant learning experience of what the newest change is, and how to take advantage of it.
It's never dull.
It's not the same tomorrow.
oh, and the biggest reason - going to work in torn shorts, a t-shirt, and no work schedule.
Nothing is constaint, the industry is evolving.
I think the web dev world is proably one of the fastest changing industries around. It's staying up to date that is the real challenge.
Mack.
It's staying up to date that is the real challenge
Yes, I would agree 110%. Just when you get comfortable writing in a language something new turns a corner and you start over. Hopefully you can bring some of your knoweldge with you.
After 4 years of mastering(?) ASP, I need to start over and learn ASP.NET
But it's great to be able to do this. Learning is good.
Build it and they will come(sometimes). So does some money now and then. A very nice bonus.
Another thought: I am constantly amazed at how little even technically savvy folks know about coding for the web. Most programmers and network guys that I've met think (wrongly) that this medium is a tinker-toy. Why, I should be able to whip out dynamic cross-platform solutions that interact seamlessly with proprietary systems on the fly!
*LOL* While misperceptions seem to be the root of my frustrations, they also feed my small superiority complex ;)
I had a boss who used to always ask me "Isn't there a button on the computer you can press to do that?"--and he was only half kidding.
But this was the same boss who--on two separate occasions--stood up in front of his entire division and said that I had saved his job with the development I did, and the speed with which I did it.
Bringing this post back around on topic--that's what makes it worthwhile for me.
First: I love life.
Second: I enjoy what I do.
Third: I am happy when ANYONE involved in a project is appreciative.
However even without the money I just like the idea of creating sites that other people can view. And education, this technology is never ending with new stuff always to learn.
It's the money and the women!
;)
