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Web Design and Development |OT| Pixel perfect is dead, long live responsive design

Copons

Member
So what's the day to day basis of a web developer at a company, what's the hours like? And are you told what project is, and if so do they expect you to know every line of code or can u just google things while on the job?

Once I finish school I will start applying to jobs, just want to know what I'm getting at

Mostly depends on the kind of environment you're gonna work in.
Like, in a corporate you'll hardly be involved in any decision (which will be likely taken by the part of the team - usually project managers - working closely with the client).
In a smaller company you'll be far more involved in all the workflow.

Hours, well, as any programming/design job, you'll have periods you'll barely have anything to do, and others where you'll have to work nights and weekends. It's part of the job, and eventually you may even end up cherishing it.
My best memories of my previous job are related to crunch times, super harsh and straining, plenty of arguing between colleagues, but in the end they always were an awesome way to bond.


Google = life.
No one is expected to know everything, and Google is, was and forever will be your best friend. And Stack Overflow, of course. And all the great and helpful people here too. :p
 
So what's the day to day basis of a web developer at a company, what's the hours like? And are you told what project is, and if so do they expect you to know every line of code or can u just google things while on the job?

Once I finish school I will start applying to jobs, just want to know what I'm getting at

If you would work on a web development company that don't let you google things, bail should bail the hell out.

More you code the better you get at it, but not a day goes by where you wouldn't google something or at minimum check the documentation out. That's why the resources exist. If you have to rely on Google for everything, then that's a different matter.

For the day-to-day operation, that totally depends on the company and the work you are doing.
 
There's no magic to the token values, they just have to be random strings. I'm not sure you can hash them either as you need to be able to recreate the signature for verification.

How will I recreate if they only the token though? I can recreate if I they also provide the string I used to hash the token I gave them. A bit iffy on relying on the originating URL unless that's standard.

So what's the day to day basis of a web developer at a company, what's the hours like? And are you told what project is, and if so do they expect you to know every line of code or can u just google things while on the job?

Once I finish school I will start applying to jobs, just want to know what I'm getting at


My typical day:
830 - 9am - check emails, Slack and JIRA
9-12p - work
12 - 1p - lunch
1p - 530p - work, with breaks spread throughout.

On sprint meeting days, we have a meeting from 11-12pm. If you employ Scrum, you'll have 5-10 minute stand up meetings daily probably at 9 or 10am.

Work load completely depends on your company. At one company it was downtime galore. I finished loads of single player games at the office because there was so much downtime. Multilayer games daily at lunch or after office hours. At my current work we never really run out of things to do. Sometimes it's too much (working weekends or past midnight), but it's been much better lately.

If the company disallows googling and stack overflow they're probably some hipster startup. Bail out. No sane company would intentionally restrict resources.
 

Copons

Member
If the company disallows googling and stack overflow they're probably some hipster startup. Bail out. No sane company would intentionally restrict resources.

Nay, I believe it's all the opposite!
While no one is really that crazy to disallow Google, at least hipster startups don't employ proxies and other shenanigans limiting your internet, inadvertently locking you out of some useful site.



In my current case, I have 2 systems in place: one is the company black-list based proxy, on top of it, there is an app (installed and launched remotely) called Websense, that seems to funnel all my navigation into some kind of time machine sending me back to the 56k era.

Websense is so slow, I basically can't open any JS heavy site. Google Search is fine, but no Google Drive for me, and usually not even Gmail. No Codepen or any other playgrounds (I had to create a little Angular project locally just to test some code on the go :D ). No Facebook, of course. Sometimes we can't even reach the clients' servers. :D
I can disable Websense to get a much appreciated boost of sanity, but then I'm in the hands of the corporate proxy. No NeoGAF and again, no Facebook, or any other page mentioning Facebook in its headings (!!!). Twitter and Reddit work great tho. :D

If you're too young to remember how it was internet on a 56k, just think about browsing with an old Android phone. That sucks and it's super frustrating.
 
CSS/Design Gaf I was looking for some advice.

I'm building a small app that talks to an API where I work to remotely create vouchers on our software.

I have created a jsfiddle here.

Basically I guess I'm looking for advice on composition, colour palette usage etc..

Would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!
 

grmlin

Member
CSS/Design Gaf I was looking for some advice.

I'm building a small app that talks to an API where I work to remotely create vouchers on our software.

I have created a jsfiddle here.

Basically I guess I'm looking for advice on composition, colour palette usage etc..

Would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

I don't like red :D

I'm no designer though. If I have to pick colors, I like to use the material ui color palettes. You can generate one at https://www.materialpalette.com for example
 

Somnid

Member
How will I recreate if they only the token though? I can recreate if I they also provide the string I used to hash the token I gave them. A bit iffy on relying on the originating URL unless that's standard.

They should send you the consumer key so you know which "app" is accessing the API. You know the app so you know what their secret is and what their token secret is. So you check to make sure the signature matches given what they send and that information.
 

Nelo Ice

Banned
So legit shook right now. Started applying to any open positions I saw that weren't for senior developers and was expecting a million rejections or no responses. Instead I've gotten 2 responses for phone interviews.

Anyone have advice for phone interviews and well interviews in general?. I'm going to be an entry level/jr dev and I didn't indicate I knew more than that on my application and resume.
 

Granadier

Is currently on Stage 1: Denial regarding the service game future
So legit shook right now. Started applying to any open positions I saw that weren't for senior developers and was expecting a million rejections or no responses. Instead I've gotten 2 responses for phone interviews.

Anyone have advice for phone interviews and well interviews in general?. I'm going to be an entry level/jr dev and I didn't indicate I knew more than that on my application and resume.

This is based on my experience interviewing for junior positions ranging from consulting shops to Facebook:

* Language isn't a big factor, as long as you're fluent in it.
* Problems will generally be simple. (factorial, sorting a list, fibonacci, etc)
* They are interested more in how you think rather than how you code.
* Be verbal about your decisions. Don't start writing code until you've gone through your approach to the problem.
* Don't be afraid to ask questions. Sometimes interviewers will intentionally leave out information in order to see if you will ask for clarification.
* For an entry level position they are looking for a good foundation to build upon. Don't worry about knowing every single thing.

Hope that helps.
 

Nelo Ice

Banned
This is based on my experience interviewing for junior positions ranging from consulting shops to Facebook:

* Language isn't a big factor, as long as you're fluent in it.
* Problems will generally be simple. (factorial, sorting a list, fibonacci, etc)
* They are interested more in how you think rather than how you code.
* Be verbal about your decisions. Don't start writing code until you've gone through your approach to the problem.
* Don't be afraid to ask questions. Sometimes interviewers will intentionally leave out information in order to see if you will ask for clarification.
* For an entry level position they are looking for a good foundation to build upon. Don't worry about knowing every single thing.

Hope that helps.

Awesome thanks for the advice. Yeah I'm mostly terrified if they ask me to do an algorithm or something since I'll flunk that with flying colors lol. Though even if it's supposed to be a simple coding problem, I'll probably freak out ><. Otherwise I feel like I'd do well in other areas.
 

Granadier

Is currently on Stage 1: Denial regarding the service game future
Awesome thanks for the advice. Yeah I'm mostly terrified if they ask me to do an algorithm or something since I'll flunk that with flying colors lol. Though even if it's supposed to be a simple coding problem, I'll probably freak out ><. Otherwise I feel like I'd do well in other areas.

I freaked out too. It's terrifying as fuck. What helped me though was talking through the problem, for my own sake. It has the added benefit of showing the interviewer where your head is at.

Also, I've been told by an engineer at Apple that algorithm questions are rare. They value data structure knowledge more than algorithms, and they aren't interested in people memorizing them.

The only exception to that would be sorting. I think you should be familiar with at least a few sorting algorithms and know how to implement them.
 

Somnid

Member
Oh man, so I wanted to revive an old project form 8 years ago (when I was first getting into js) and I think I want to shoot my former self. Underscored variable names, global variables, big long loops, ugh this is going to take forever to whip into shape.
 

Kalnos

Banned
In my experience with phone interviews I have never been asked to write any code. Not saying you won't get asked but the companies I have interviewed with have been more interested in me explaining concepts. e.g. "What is the difference between private and protected in C# classes?", "What does concurrency mean?" sort of stuff.

I have however been given code assignments on websites whose names I forget that give you like 30 minutes - 1 hour to complete a pretty simple problem.
 

Nelo Ice

Banned
I freaked out too. It's terrifying as fuck. What helped me though was talking through the problem, for my own sake. It has the added benefit of showing the interviewer where your head is at.

Also, I've been told by an engineer at Apple that algorithm questions are rare. They value data structure knowledge more than algorithms, and they aren't interested in people memorizing them.

The only exception to that would be sorting. I think you should be familiar with at least a few sorting algorithms and know how to implement them.

Ok awesome granted still terrified of getting any technical problems if I get to the in person interview. Feels like I'm just going to bomb them and not impress anyone. Hence why I didn't think anyone would take a look at me without having a contact within the company. So still sitting here in a daze like what did they see in me?!.


In my experience with phone interviews I have never been asked to write any code. Not saying you won't get asked but the companies I have interviewed with have been more interested in me explaining concepts. e.g. "What is the difference between private and protected in C# classes?", "What does concurrency mean?" sort of stuff.

I have however been given code assignments on websites whose names I forget that give you like 30 minutes - 1 hour to complete a pretty simple problem.

I'm more worried about coding problems if I get to the in person interview since I usually need google or someone to help walk me through something if I don't understand it. With that said I must be doing something right if I'm somehow landing phone interviews without leveraging the network I've worked so hard to build up for the last 8 months lol.

On another note, I still feel like I need to do more even though I've talked to multiple developers who are convinced I'm qualified to be a junior dev. And one of those devs is a manager with 10 years experience who looked at my resume and said it was enough. Anyway I still have that nagging feeling that I ain't shit until I actually land a job. Mostly since I've built myself up from no programming experience and built my network from scratch in 8 months. And to top things off I don't have a degree or bootcamp experience so I'm still having trouble believing I can succeed until I actually do haha.
 

Blunoise

Member
So on my second project I needed to create a responsive design site for a desktop 1024, tablet 768, and mobile 320. For 3 days I have been trying to do this with trying to scale it down from desktop view. I wanted to pull my hair out because elements kept jumping everywhere and nothing would stick like I wanted it to. Then I figured out that I made this assignment harder for myself by not starting from mobile first, then scale up to desktop view, which is what my project instructions were.

Iam going to redo this tmmrw and I feel like I will have better luck this time!
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
You'll notice this in a lot of responsive sites that they're just a few shrunk elements away from a single column scroll layout, optimal for mobile.
 

grmlin

Member
Yes, you should always start with mobile and add things for desktop later.

Building responsive websites needs patience and experience. The biggest problem can be the designer expecting the wildest stunts from the frontend developer(s).

But it's not as worse as ~5 years ago where everybody was like: »no, we don't have to build the website for mobile at extra cost, it's responsive«. Everybody thought that responsiveness was a free upgrade lol
 
Hey guys, is it possible to autoplay html 5 videos on mobile? Most mobile browsers block videos from autoplaying because it could kill battery/bandwidth/data usage. I think we've seen autoplaying video on mobile before. But all of the examples I pull up of video backgrounds won't autoplay on my device.

Anyone know how to achieve this?
 

grmlin

Member
Hey guys, is it possible to autoplay html 5 videos on mobile? Most mobile browsers block videos from autoplaying because it could kill battery/bandwidth/data usage. I think we've seen autoplaying video on mobile before. But all of the examples I pull up of video backgrounds won't autoplay on my device.

Anyone know how to achieve this?

As far as I know: NO. Thats a good thing and I hope I'll never have to deal with auto playing videos on mobile.

Anyway, you can of course use some workaround like gifs etc, but thats even worse ;)
 

Somnid

Member
Hey guys, is it possible to autoplay html 5 videos on mobile? Most mobile browsers block videos from autoplaying because it could kill battery/bandwidth/data usage. I think we've seen autoplaying video on mobile before. But all of the examples I pull up of video backgrounds won't autoplay on my device.

Anyone know how to achieve this?

You need a js video decoder (this is a theoretical answer, not one you should take), but it's a terrible experience for the reasons you mentioned so don't do it, and luckily browsers block it so if the client asks tell them you can't do it.
 

WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
I have to say, as somebody whose bandwidth on mobile is ridiculously low, I'd delete your site from all memory and never in my life visit again if there was an auto playing video. That shit is expensive!
 
On another note, I still feel like I need to do more even though I've talked to multiple developers who are convinced I'm qualified to be a junior dev. And one of those devs is a manager with 10 years experience who looked at my resume and said it was enough. Anyway I still have that nagging feeling that I ain't shit until I actually land a job. Mostly since I've built myself up from no programming experience and built my network from scratch in 8 months. And to top things off I don't have a degree or bootcamp experience so I'm still having trouble believing I can succeed until I actually do haha.
I remember there being a quote in the programming community about how many people believe their skills are inadequate compared to their value. We all tend to be harder on ourselves and can get caught up in the comparison game with other programmers or developers. If a company wanted some exceptional programmer, they'd hire for that position. Most companies hiring for entry-level work are looking for people they can grow (hopefully to stay with the company as long as possible).
 

WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
I'm getting frustrated with learning JavaScript. The Treehouse pathway is just so slow. So slow. It feels like it'll take forever to get to what I actually want to learn.

For instance, I have a fairly singular goal with JS. I want to make a horizontal timeline. I know I can plug and play a variety of solutions, but I want to make this on my own. The first step is learning how to click a thing and slide that thing away and replace it with another thing. Basic behavior that I don't understand. Is there a specific place for tutorials for things of that nature?

I plan on continuing my foundation learning, but I need some more, I guess advanced stuff to learn in conjunction to piece it all together in my head.
 

Nelo Ice

Banned
I remember there being a quote in the programming community about how many people believe their skills are inadequate compared to their value. We all tend to be harder on ourselves and can get caught up in the comparison game with other programmers or developers. If a company wanted some exceptional programmer, they'd hire for that position. Most companies hiring for entry-level work are looking for people they can grow (hopefully to stay with the company as long as possible).

Thanks for the advice. Yeah I keep hoping someone will take me on as entry level work and not expect me to answer difficult tech questions or whiteboard program. Though hell I feel like I'm gonna have issues answering supposedly easy tech questions. Then they'll see that and not want to bother with me. Aside from that nagging issue, I feel confident enough that I'm a good candidate otherwise. Cuz if there's one thing I've learned is that I can talk to people and sell myself without sounding pretentious lol.
 

Daffy Duck

Member
I'm getting frustrated with learning JavaScript. The Treehouse pathway is just so slow. So slow. It feels like it'll take forever to get to what I actually want to learn.

For instance, I have a fairly singular goal with JS. I want to make a horizontal timeline. I know I can plug and play a variety of solutions, but I want to make this on my own. The first step is learning how to click a thing and slide that thing away and replace it with another thing. Basic behavior that I don't understand. Is there a specific place for tutorials for things of that nature?

I plan on continuing my foundation learning, but I need some more, I guess advanced stuff to learn in conjunction to piece it all together in my head.

I got the Javascript and Jquery book by Jon Duckett, it is excellent.
 

WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
I got the Javascript and Jquery book by Jon Duckett, it is excellent.

No eBook version??? What the what? Isn't that like a car salesmen delivering your car by rickshaw? I'll take a look at it. I can't even remember the last time I had a printed book. 1923, I think. I was a flapper.
 

Daffy Duck

Member
No eBook version??? What the what? Isn't that like a car salesmen delivering your car by rickshaw? I'll take a look at it. I can't even remember the last time I had a printed book. 1923, I think. I was a flapper.

Hahahaha, I am sure on Amazon there is a kindle version...it's an odd one though the layout certainly does seem like one though that wouldn't work in a digital version if that makes sense.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
For you ES6 users, have you embraced block-scoped const as your one true god or do you use let more often and maybe even var?

I'm picking away at a tutorial that, at one point, switched all its lets to consts in the sample code. On one hand I know why the specificity of const is preferable as the "default". On the other hand, I like the three keystrokes for let more than the five for const. I come from a C++/C# background so I have no trouble structuring my code to respect block scope, nor am I in the habit of reusing handles, so the benefits of const are small for me, and even if it says "const", I know it's not really const in the sense of "immutability" like I'm used to.

Still, sometimes I struggle with the philosophical question of whether I should set the "prefer-const" flag in my ESLint file to "1". I've read quite a few blog posts on the matter as well, some accepting "const as default" wholeheartedly and others who'd still rather use var.
 

Somnid

Member
For you ES6 users, have you embraced block-scoped const as your one true god or do you use let more often and maybe even var?

I'm picking away at a tutorial that, at one point, switched all its lets to consts in the sample code. On one hand I know why the specificity of const is preferable as the "default". On the other hand, I like the three keystrokes for let more than the five for const. I come from a C++/C# background so I have no trouble structuring my code to respect block scope, nor am I in the habit of reusing handles, so the benefits of const are small for me, and even if it says "const", I know it's not really const in the sense of "immutability" like I'm used to.

Still, sometimes I struggle with the philosophical question of whether I should set the "prefer-const" flag in my ESLint file to "1". I've read quite a few blog posts on the matter as well, some accepting "const as default" wholeheartedly and others who'd still rather use var.

Const is for constants, if it doesn't change it's const. If it changes it's let. Var kinda stopped being relevant.
 
Const is for constants, if it doesn't change it's const. If it changes it's let. Var kinda stopped being relevant.

Yup, same with me. Var still might have it's uses but I haven't personally ran into a situation where the scope would have forced me to use var instead of let (or a situation where var would have made more sense).

Someone posted an idea where variables that should be removed or changed (or something similar, "non-final" anyway) would be expressed with `var` which was kinda interesting.
 

Copons

Member
For you ES6 users, have you embraced block-scoped const as your one true god or do you use let more often and maybe even var?

I'm picking away at a tutorial that, at one point, switched all its lets to consts in the sample code. On one hand I know why the specificity of const is preferable as the "default". On the other hand, I like the three keystrokes for let more than the five for const. I come from a C++/C# background so I have no trouble structuring my code to respect block scope, nor am I in the habit of reusing handles, so the benefits of const are small for me, and even if it says "const", I know it's not really const in the sense of "immutability" like I'm used to.

Still, sometimes I struggle with the philosophical question of whether I should set the "prefer-const" flag in my ESLint file to "1". I've read quite a few blog posts on the matter as well, some accepting "const as default" wholeheartedly and others who'd still rather use var.

I've set "prefer-const" to 2 even (I'm OCD enough that a warning would still be too annoying), but I'm starting to find it a bit... well, dumb.
I mean, if I declare a const array and then push something into it, technically the const isn't changed (hence, correctly, no errors from ESLint), but... IT IS!

So at this point: should I bend to ESLint's whims (let alone the fact that I was the one asking it to enforce the rule :D ), or writing a code that makes proper sense?
 

Kinitari

Black Canada Mafia
Anyone get their hands dirty in any angular 2.0 projects yet? Are you going Js or TypeScript?

I've done a few basic angular2 projects, doing one big one starting this week, and I've played around with ionic2 - always typescript for all of them. Mostly for the es6, but the reason I go with TS over babel or something (aside from the fact that angular2's es6 docs are geared around ts) is that I like decorators.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Const is for constants, if it doesn't change it's const. If it changes it's let. Var kinda stopped being relevant.
I mean, if I declare a const array and then push something into it, technically the const isn't changed (hence, correctly, no errors from ESLint), but... IT IS!

Right, that's where I struggle the most. Seeing "const" everywhere ticks me off knowing it's a different "const" than the "const" I'm familiar with. I read some blog that said the powers-that-be should've called used "let" for "const" and then called "let" something else to avoid cross-lingual confusion.

EDIT: Actually, I think I understand the difference between const and immutable more now that I've looked up literature about it for other languages. It was I who had the wrong impression of "const".
 

Blunoise

Member
Guys I have been trying all day to create 2 divs to stack on top of each other in 2 rows with 6 photos horizontal. I instead have 2 vertical rows. I have tried inline and everything. Does anybody else may know what I'm doing wrong??? It's killing me lol
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Try "clear: both" on the outer divs, and then "float: left" for the inner photos.

Or use the magic of flexbox.
 

Somnid

Member
My mind was blown at work today. I just found out that most sans-serif fonts have a lot of padding when the character has a flat left-edge (B, D, P, E etc) and this screws up left-edge alignment with other elements (especially noticeable if aligned to a close subheading or something with smaller font). It seems without doing some extreme type layouts with js you pretty much have to suck it up and add negative left margin to the line to compensate as large letters that do align like T,X,A etc won't be as visually noticeable since only the small horizontal and diagonal parts are off alignment. I'm shocked I have never really noticed this before today and that I can't even find someone's amatuer blog talking about this problem.
 
I'm currently in school learning programming. Several languages and the one that gives me the most trouble is js for some reason.

I'm currently trying to use js to change images based on the radio buttons I click. Anyone have any idea how to do this?
 

WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Hahahaha, I am sure on Amazon there is a kindle version...it's an odd one though the layout certainly does seem like one though that wouldn't work in a digital version if that makes sense.

No Kindle version at all! Whatevs. Bought it and am patiently waiting for it to arrive via mail, like some kinda savage.

Thanks for the tip.
 

mugwhump

Member
So I'm remaking a client's website. He made the current super-simple one using this CM4All website creator, which is not great. He's said I can use whatever I want and his webhost has some tools integrated.

Capture_zpsjxg5cprz.png


I can write it from scratch, but should I consider using any of these? I'd think it might be nice to leave him with something he can maintain himself, but is that really my problem? Am thinking about wordpress, might be nice to learn.

The site's just a simple website for his store, no interactive shit. Should probably be responsive though.
 
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