Following on from my recent post, My concerns about Web Developer’s skill sets since asp.NET came to be, I thought I would justify why I think developers need to know more than just how to code a part of a website.

Lets start with coding itself. A lot of back end (ASP.NET for example) developers don’t care about front-end (presentation layer) code because they believe it is below them for some reason. Unfortunately, what they fail to understand is that knowing the basic principals of how to code the presentation layer can actually be influenced how you do certain things on the back end. It’s OK to rely on the built in controls, they work, that’s why Microsoft put them in, but they also put a lot in to give you that choice and flexibility!

Think about that for a second. Is there a chance that they are too generic and slightly bulky? Is there a chance that one may be quicker to implement, but another will actually give you far more control over the aesthetics of the site (the presentation layer). If you can control that, it will allow the designer to express themselves better, and the client to be more impressed.

The same goes for front-end code. Would making an element a user control or list speed things up, or frustrate the developer that’s got to plug-in the code that will integrate the presentation code with the CMS back end?

But, why stop there? Why not think about how those objects will then affect the performance of the site in terms of speed, longevity and marketing (SEO, SEM, analytics, campaigns, viral, RSS, etc.). If you construct a page in a certain way, you can maximise how Bots for example, index the site. If you build forms and databases in a certain way, you can collect data in a way that makes utilising it for profiling and targeting emails.

OK, so the data collection bit comes under a different area of the process, but it’s a very useful skill to know! If you look at a site, and see a missed opportunity, how good will that make you look? That idea to collect an additional piece of data, or make the user profiling module that bit more flexible suddenly opens the site up to a whole new world of selling back into the client, and in turn, maximising their return, and future spend! You’ve made you company money with an idea, that will hopefully ultimately see you rewarded!

Then there’s SEO and analytics. 2 very broad topics that I will only touch on, but 2 very important ones! If you have some down time, go and have a look at the stats, and see if you can spot anything unusual or useful. Perhaps a page isn’t appearing that you’re sure should be there. Has something happened that could be making that page less favourable to the search engines? Is there a page or particular area of a page that’s performing better than expected? Is there an opportunity to leverage that to drive more people to key information?

And one that amazes me, is how many people in the web industry still don’t know what a blog is, and how an RSS feed should actually work including ‘pinging’. For anyone that wants to work for me, there’s a very good hint as to one of my favourite interview questions!

You can see that there’s more to just coding a website for it to work. It is an area the web is still learning, and it’s only those web site developers that go to the effort of learning above and beyond one area of code, that will ever be a true legend on the web and let them make a name for themselves.

OK, so a slightly long winded title, but I have to express a concern of mine. Recently I’ve been trying to hire web developers for my team to build web site, but I’m hitting a continual brick wall… Most of them actually don’t know how to build a web site!

These people know .NET, which is obviously a good thing, but they don’t seem to have any awareness of the other elements of the website. If it’s not in .NET code, and if it’s not a built in .NET control, then why should they need to know it? That’s the way it comes across to me.

When I started learning web development, I tool the approach of learning HTML mark-up first, then moving to server-side code in the form of Coldfusion. It seemed logical to do it that way, as ultimately what the end user sees is HTML. When CSS came along, I jumped on that bandwagon, and loved it. It helped me breath new life into my code. Then I changed from Coldfusion to Classic ASP and Microsoft SQL. All this enabled me to take a Photoshop file and deliver a complete website with a database driven back-end - incidentally built using the CMS systems I have developed over the years.

Recently, I started learning .NET and I’ve realised what a lazy language it is. Everything about it is geared to not really needing to think about anything! Everything is done for you, to the extent where you just need to start typing and Intellisense kicks in and tells you what you probably meant - and most of the time it’s right. I think that should be a good thing as it gives you more time to focus on the HTML, CSS and JavaScript side of things, delivering a great looking, functional website which validates if possible.

This also gives you more time to ensure the other elements of the site are more polished and included, perhaps affording you time to improve your RSS feed to include the most up to date information. Looking at a new technique such as integrating the Open Search for people’s toolbar or including microformats. Carrying out those last checks such as ensuring the Google Analytics and sitemap code is included and working.

However, that’s not how it works now. Apparently, people that know .NET are exempt from knowing anything outside of .NET when it comes to building a website, which to my mind makes them an Application Developer, not a web developer. Recently, we had an intern in who said he was good at html and CSS, but when you say that’s good and can he turn this PSD into a site, he says know, that’s someone else’s job as if he’s more important than that because he knows .NET.

Why has this happened? It’s a single language, so why do these people place so much value on this one skill over the other, in my opinion more important, elements of the site? I think it’s the banks. Think about it. Banks have recently built massive systems and brought everything online over a period, paying people lots of money for that period and then letting them all go once that task was completed, flooding the market with people who thought they understood the web. It’s a shame, but it affects smaller companies the most ultimately.

Add to that that they don’t seem to understand the idea of a good user experience, and are happy if what they build works. They don’t care if it works well, and don’t even seem to notice if something doesn’t work as well as it could. If a page is slow, doesn’t matter, it loads. If a page is hard to use, doesn’t matter as it works doesn’t it? I find that a strange attitude.

We’ve been talking internally, and are hopeful that a change is afoot and that the days of the true web developer will return again. The developers I place highest value on can be given a PSD and produce an entire website, optimised and including all the elements that make a website great! And I really hope that hope comes true.

Ok, so I made the switch to having my site running completely on Wordpress. Originally it ran just my blogs, and I ran a custom front-end to pull that information out. But, since that site was built, Wordpress has matured a lot, and it’s now able to do a lot of what I wanted my site to do. There’s still a few bits missing, but that can be ironed out.

I’m going to write more on this, but it’s late, and this way I have more to write tomorrow. But so far, I’ve installed several plugins ranging from SEO to a gallery - only pain is having to bring all my images back into the new site.

Blogs were easy as they were already in Wordpress. But it amazes me how easy it was to set-up and install extras. The plugin framework is phenomenally flexible and really impressed me. It is more like a CMS now, managing pages in the same way it manages blogs - a sensible move and one I really wanted to incorporate into my new site.

Then there was the upgrade process. I had version 2.3 installed, and running happily, but then wordpress released version 2.5. Usually I will let a piece of software settle down before taking the plunge, but everything I’d read about this new version made me keen to dive in and try it. It was as easy as dragging files into your site. The next time you go to the admin section, it asks to run the upgrade script - makes some small changes to the database indexes - and that’s it. You’re up and running!

I looked around at several themes, but the Cutline 3-Column Split 1.1 theme from Chris Pearson over at personified.com was exactly what I was after. It’s a nice, clean, 3-column layout that only required a few small tweaks. The header images have been changed with some of my own, and the top navigation was amended.

I will be building my own theme over the coming weeks, but for now, I think you’ll agree, it looks pretty good.

This came from having one of those random, geeky office conversations you tend to have for no particular reason. You know the sort… What would happen if you swap the ‘n’ and ‘m’ key round on the new person’s keyboard. Do you remember Dungeon Master on the Atari ST? What would life be like if it were more like a video game? Would the internet of come about quicker if macs were the dominant computer? More to the point, would the world be a better place if macs ruled the PC market?

I digress. This blog is aimed at the humble fax. Our friend. Our enemy. The source of endless cheap printer cartridge refills - which incidentally you need as all the cartridge offers use up the ink! The butt of many jokes (think that classic scene if Office Space).

But a lot’s happened in the world. We now have that amazing thing called the internet. You can send anything - well, anything that can be converted to 0 and 1 - to anyone, anywhere. Add to that, the way that most photocopiers are now attached to the office network, so now you don’t even need your computer to send that file. Just stick the paper in the copier, enter the email address, and hey-presto, the other person gets it - and in probably less time than the fax.

So, with all this technology, why is the fax still going strong? Well everyone, I’ve great news for you! I think I’ve cracked it!

I’ll start with the problem with emails. In the original days of email, it was a special event when you got one. Nowadays, you get so many emails, that, to be honest, you don’t read all of them, often missing vital things. It’s not malicious, but to get your job done, you often have to skim read the title and ignore some of them. About now, some people are saying no I don’t do that. But think about it… Really think about it. I bet you do!

Now, with faxes, you see a lone piece of paper on the fax machine, someone will inevitably pick it up and read it. Even if they don’t finish it, they’ll still pick it up and read it to point. You have to! Faxes don’t have titles do they, so you’ve got to find out what’s on there somehow.

You also have the advantage now that they’ve passed of the spammers radar, so the faxes you generally get are actually useful. Think about that for a second. The one tool we used to curse for the amount of rubbish you got on it is suddenly really, really useful again!

Now, put the fax machine next to the secretary in the office, and suddenly anything really important has an almost guaranteed way to get to you. That’s why we use it for sign-off documents. That’s why anything you have to sign has to use the fax. It is useful and is a prime example of how you shouldn’t dismiss technologies too soon. Email’s still a child in a grown-ups world.

Has anyone noticed that their friends aren’t using Facebook as much now? I don’t know if it’s just me, but the number of messages with update I get from friends has dropped dramatically. When you log in and check, the updates they’ve been making has dropped dramatically too.

It’s a strange phenomena. The theory behind Facebook is superb. Let you and your friends share everything. Put photos up, let them and their friends know they’re in it. Set up events and groups that they might be interested in. Bring them all together in one place. Send your friends messages and videos from sources such as YouTube.

And the way the user interface has been built is a true demonstration of form and function giving you the best user experience of almost any site. The User interface is so polished and simple. It does what it needs to do, and it does it well. There’s no excessive Ajax calls. You see what you need, when you need it, and it’s quick and clean. The essence of Web 2.0.

You can find groups about just about anything. People that walk slowly, how cute cats are, my favourite drink, bring back Firefly. All valid groups and all things we might be interested in. We should be subscribing to them and sharing our opinions.

Then there’s a the Facebook Applications. A brilliant idea! Open up your service to keen people, let them share their ideas and their passion. Bring the people who love similar things together. Let them take quizzes and see which character from the Simpsons or Family Guy you are. All great fun.

I know there was a time when I was very active on Facebook, joining groups left right and centre. Installing applications for fun. But then, recently, I suddenly decided to remove all those applications. Un-subscribe from those groups. But why? I couldn’t figure it out initially.

Then I started looking and talking to other people, and they’ve done the same. Then I started thinking about why. Why did I feel the need to remove all those Applications that once interested me? Because, to be honest, they were fun once, and the fact that every time one of my friends uses the Application, I get told - repeatedly.

I haven’t removed all of the Applications though. Some are still there, like the places I’ve been one, and Wiliam’s RSS feed reader. They seem genuinely useful to me, and something my friends can use to find out useful things about me and keep in touch with me.

So what am I trying to say? Facebook, please, please, please, don’t ruin the brilliant idea you’ve built! Focus on what it did so well originally! Connecting friends and people with similar interests, and not watering down the experience.

It’s hard to put your finger on exactly what’s gone wrong, but if it’s not fixed soon, one of the best websites of recent years will lose the people that it most appealed to originally and end up like MySpace.