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Modern web development: the easier the harder.

zooboole

Published By zooboole

Web development has been one of the most famous and multi-faceted fields in the last two decades.

In the beginning, we used to talk of web mastering. According to Wikipedia:

A webmaster (from web and master), also called a web architect, web developer, site author, website administrator, or website coordinator is a person responsible for maintaining one or many websites.

In time this mega field was broken into pieces: web designing and web development.

Like this wasn't enough, those two were each broken into other pieces too. A web designer can now be a front-end designer or front-end developer.

A web developer can be a front-end developer or a back-end developer. That's is not all. A front-end designer can also be a User Interface (UI) designer or a User Experience (UX) Designer.

This is probably a few in the whole ecosystem. But the main idea behind all these changes and branching is usually to make things easier and coherent.

Unfortunately, it seems like the easier we try to make it, the harder it becomes. I'm sure many people are already confused with the introduction I made. Showing what's actually what in web development today can be very confusing.

One big challenge I usually face here on Lancecourse(formerly phpocean) when writing is how to call modern webmasters. In my titles, I wish sometimes to use "webmaster" to designate both front-end and backend devs and designers, but it looks obsolete. I even think some people might not even know about it.

This issue doesn't only apply to our jargon, but it's also to our tooling and workflows. Read a bit How it feels to learn javascript in 2016. The choice of tools and techniques has become a very confusing case because we overdid them. The learning system is full of possibilities to the extent that new learners get lost on what to choose. It has become hard for an expert to say with conviction what to do or not.

I remember when FTP was still used to upload websites. We just have to wait for the code to be ready to deploy. Today you have to go through version controls, deployment tools, and techniques. And that's based on the type of project/OS you are working on.

Before I conclude on this, let's look at some questions you might be asking:

So, Is web mastering dead?

YES, I think it's dead.

No one uses this term anymore and it seems like only search engines and old web developers know about it.

You will not see any company looking for webmasters again. It's too vague today. When you look at the Webmaster page on Wikipedia, it doesn't make sense. All it says a webmaster does is impossible in this new generation of web development.

Even Google has to change its webmaster's tools name to Google Search Console

Where are the old webmasters?

They are around. Today we call them Full stack developers. They can do almost everything. They know a bit of everything concerning websites.

How do we call modern webmasters then?

No, they are not called webmasters. Call them by their title. It can be a Front End Designer, User Experience Expert, Back End Developer, etc. That makes more sense.

To wrap this up, I will tell you that the end of web mastering was a great opening to many more opportunities. It has given us the chance to separate many concerns. Although that is more confusing, it's far better to help us be great at what we do best.

Also, due to modern website requirements, it would be a crime for a person to handle everything around it. As for the complication, it brings it's normal. The best for new learners is to learn how to focus on one thing at a time.

Cover Image credit: https://dynomapper.com/features