So I’ve become familiar with questions that tech companies ask when interviewing candidates for web developer positions in “Silicon Valley” in California. So if you’re interviewing, you should prep yourself for the following interview questions that always seem to come up:
- What JavaScript libraries have you used? (And for YUI, which seems to be popular, which components have you used?)
- What’s the difference between “if (a==x)” and “if (a===x)”?
- Have you developed CSS for different browsers and versions? What are some examples of issues you’ve had? (i.e. box model)
- How do you keep up on web technology? (books, blogs, etc.)
- Use this text editor to properly properly markup this form from memory (with XHTML, CSS, JavaScript).
- Use this text editor to properly properly markup this table from memory (with XHTML).
- What’s the difference between “visibility:hidden” and “display:none”?
- What’s the difference between using var inside and outside of a JavaScript function? (or an exercise involving this)
- How would you write the HTML and CSS for a standard three-column layout with header and footer?
Guess what? Adobe’s Dreamweaver CS4 Beta is available! And I’m just getting used to CS3! New features include:
- Live View
- Code Navigator
- CSS best practices
- Code hinting for Ajax and JavaScript frameworks
- HTML data sets
- Photoshop Smart Objects
- Subversion integration
- AIR support
- New user interface
jQuery is a great JavaScript library for fast, easy development. I met the creator John Resig at a conference last year. He’s a great guy, and I even “won” a nice jQuery book.
jQuery is a fast, concise, JavaScript Library that simplifies how you traverse HTML documents, handle events, perform animations, and add Ajax interactions to your web pages
Here’s a good overview slide show on jQuery:
Here are some recent blog articles that are a must read for any web developer (especially front-end coders).
If you’re a front-end expert like me, and you work with Java programmers, then you’ll know how much typing the following web page will save you. Common HTML Validation Problems from the Web Design Group is a handy resource for reminding poorly HTML-skilled co-workers of what they need to write valid code. Well, as least it’s a start!
Some common errors include:
- Ampersands in URLs
- Incorrect Nesting of Elements
- Using a NAME attribute with IMG or FORM
- Uppercase letters in XHTML tags
Although, I must say, the real problem is in the process of going from mockups to development. The back-end guys never do it right. There should be a universal law that back-end programmers cannot change the front-end code; the outputted code should match clean semantic XHTML that you (and me) worked so hard to create.
Why is this so difficult? I blame two things–time constraints and lack of desire to learn. Marketing and management continue to push IT staff into creating web projects too quickly; haste makes waste. And, unfortunately many programmers are afraid of change; they program the same way over and over, for years. Uh, excuse me but web technology changes kinda fast, so keep up please!
Adobe’s Dreamweaver (previously Macromedia) is a great application. I’ve been using it for years and never found another application that performs so well overall in code editing, WYSIWYG editing, user interface design, extendability, automatic code cleanup and formatting, and compatibility with other applications (such as Fireworks and now Photoshop). And no, it doesn’t mess up your hand-written code.
Recently, I discovered couple of specific text coding features that I believe are not included. I don’t believe there is a command for wrapping a span or code tag around text. In the Insert panel (normally the bar above the page view), there is a text input sub-menu that contains buttons for blockquotes, preformatted text, lists, definition lists, etc., but lacks the span or code tags.
So, if you use Dreamweaver’s code editor a lot, like me, you can add a couple of custom commands to wrap a span or code tag around text. This can easily be done with the Snippet feature. To create it, open Dreamweaver and:
- Select the Snippets tab in the Files panel.
- Select the New Snippet icon.
- Enter as name (such as “wrap a Span”).
- Enter a Description if you’d like, it’s optional.
- Leave as wrap selection.
- In before block, enter “<span>”.
- In after block, enter “</span>”.
- Select OK. The custom Snippet is created.
Now to use it, just wipe-select some code and double-click the Snippet in the Panel (or select the Snippet and click the Insert button at the bottom left of the panel).
Here are some Acronyms and Quotes that definitely worth reading!
- On future of Ajax:
- “Ajax is the frames of web 2.0″
- How true; Ajax is overused and many times not used correctly.
- Jeremy Keith in Hijax presentation:
- “Plan for Ajax from the start; Implement Ajax at the end”
- Great advice. Go read his book, Bulletproof Ajax.
- D.R.Y.
- “Don’t Repeat Yourself”
- Meaning don’t rewrite and duplicate code. Great idea, especially for larger sites.
- i18n
- “Internationalization”
- Cute, isn’t it? Comes from “i” + 18 letters + “n”.
- X.H.R
- “xmlHttpRequest”
- P.O.S.H.
- “Plain Old Semantic HTML”
- My favorite!
- A quote about friendly web development:
- “Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others.”
- Be responsible with your code.
- A quote about using Macs:
- “Once you go Mac, you never go back.”
- Is that not P.C.? Ha ha.
- A.H.A.H.
- “Asynchronous HTML and HTTP”
- Becoming a much more relevant term; there are other often-used alternatives to the X in Ajax (XML).
Follow me on Twitter!
