Why I hate web developers.
A cautionary tale
Disclaimers:
1. Of course there are web developers who don't really follow this pattern. But there are plenty who do. And frankly, they are very likely the majority, judging from the web content.
2. This is a cautionary tale not because I somehow feel my needs are above the others. But this is a cry for common sense and for a functional web in lieu of a pretty web.
3. I don't really hate web developers. But if you happen to be like specimen AR-45/08 above, I can't answer for myself.
So anyways, I'm starting with an anecdote.
A couple of weeks ago, at Khan Academy, they decided to introduce a new video control bar that replaced the usual one that is displayed with the HTML5 player. This new control bar had the essential video playback controls; play, pause, volume control, a button to set captions on and off and another to make the video fullscreen or not. They also removed the HTML5 player controls and you could only use the new ones.
This new video control bar was introduced apparently to streamline the overall look of the page. The new controls where stylized in the same general theme of the webpage where the Khan Academy displays videos.
What obviously didn't cross their minds was how non-functional these new controls really were, compared to the default ones. Gone was the option to change the video quality format, gone was the option to see snapshots of a frame at any given point of the video. Gone was the option to decide when a video should start buffering or playing (they now played automatically and you had no idea how far ahead the buffer was at any moment in time).
For some people, these are really important features. Over here, at ~32 USD per 2GB, you bet I don't want to be watching the hundreds of Khan Academy videos in anything other than 240p. For a rough idea, a typical 5 minute video there will cost me 5 Mb at 240p, or 86Mb at 720p. And for some strange reason, google has yet to provide the WebM container they themselves developed for the 240p playback format on YouTube (they only do for 360p and above), which would further reduce the size to somewhere around 3 Mb.
And with the low bandwidth and expensive plans typical of a third-world countries derived from their almost complete lack of internet infrastructure, you should also expect slow connection speeds. So the ability to control when a video should start buffering and when it should start playing after enough buffering occurs, is also important for a good playback experience.
And no, this isn't about MY needs only. Khan Academy is an educational website with far reaching impact around the world. It is particularly helpful to exactly these type of countries where the educational system is frankly so bad, even Salman Khan with his constant mistakes, leaps of logic and a panache for explaining procedures instead of concepts, makes a better teacher than most of the poorly educated high school graduates teaching in high schools (no kidding) over here. It's developed countries that DON'T need Salman Khan, despite what Bill Gates says.
After two weeks with that pretty bar, complaints finally had them remove it. For now, Khan Academy is back at supplying the HTML5 player default controls.
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The thing that bothers me most about the general practice of web development as it has turned out to be, is the excessive focus on form over function. Web developers simply can't seem to be able to avoid it. More often than not, if some function stands in the way of presentation, the function will be sacrificed or will be presented in such a distorted way as to become difficult to use ad lose any of its practical benefits. Rarely we can see web developers putting function over form.
It's a disease. A virus that spreads like the Spanish Flu and ends up affecting almost all web developers. They want to look at themselves as first an artist and only then a programmer. They care and boast more about some pretty effect and a nice choice of color combinations, than they will about an optimization to their bloated CSS or some new feature that breaks with the traditional format but offers an advantage to the users. In fact, breaking with the traditional format is seen as a designer sin.
The 'B' Ark is where I want to put all web developers. Douglas Adams forgot about them. I didn't.
But in all reality, it's not that I can blame them. Particularly the newcomers. Without proper guidance, they will just follow what they are told. And the matter of fact is that Web Development is largely practiced at a professional level by the undergrad. There's not much going on in terms of formal education concerning web development. Web developers working on companies or for themselves are essentially folks that knew how to use a search engine and had some time on their hands. The actual rules and best practices of design were lost to them and presented only in soundbites that often conflict with what they are being told elsewhere by some "veteran" (who knows jack about design) web developer.
And so this general ad-hoc education in web development results in folks like the Khan Academy team. Trick treaters with a penchant for the visual and futile, with very little interest in practicing proper project analysis, and so can't even distinguish heads from tails before their users actually start complaining.
I don't mean to pick at Khan Academy. This is widespread. It's in fact so bad, that many web developers who really do care to strike an healthy balance between function and form, end up having no other choice than to reluctantly give in to the pop culture of visually-oriented web development, once they get a job. And boy, is the web development world full of visual gospel! I still laugh (or cringe, depending on the day) at the discussions of what is the ideal number of words per line.
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So, hmm... right. This post had a point, other than just ranting. I can't recall anymore. Maybe it was... DON'T DO IT!
