The Education of Freelancing and Staying in the Game

Originally posted Thursday, November 16th, 2006
Updates applied May 20th, 2007 -

Friends always harass me about who my web development and design instructors are. I give them the names of instructors I have taken. Unfortunately what they don’t realize is the concepts that have made me successful were learned outside the classroom.

I must attribute what I have learned to the fact that I started out designing web sites at an early age and was producing for client at the same speed. I was a daily user before I could grasp how web sites worked inside and out. I read various tutorials online. I learned a lot from the days Angelfire.com was a huge free server and WebMonkey was its tutorial counterpart. Years later I own my server and create ways to produce my web sites.

Learning is something you never finish in this industry. To this day I still learn something from every project that I take in. The amount that I know about this industry is far greater than it was when I graduated high school. Heck, what I’ve learned in the past year (thanks to Chris Pund’s talk about Web 2.0 way back in the day) has really amazed me. I also run into various situations where I learn just how little I know about this industry. This is critical as it really showcases where one needs to improve.

LAMP. Web 2.0. AJAX. The User Experience. Hello Divs. Bye Bye Tables. The world in front of us developers is changing ever so rapidly. How does one keep up with the break-neck pace of it all? Online forums, social bookmarking, and web sites geared toward the profession are a tremendous start in terms of help. It also doesn't hurt to have a Barnes & Noble near by either. Just think - go there, grab a cup of coffee, hit up the technology section and read some of the latest books out. It's a cheap and effective way to see what authors are writing about. Think those two previous steps aren't enough? Develop for clients, but do your research on products similar to what you are developing. Take note of the trends.

As of right now, you may wonder what are the emerging technlogies and trends. From my user experience and work as a developer, here is my input on WHAT you should know if you want to be effective in this field of work:

Bare Essentials:

• HTML 4.01
• XHTML
• CSS

Web-Development:

• XHTML
• CSS
• Javascript
• PHP
• ASP, ASP.NET
• C++
• AJAX
  
• JAVA
• PERL
• XML
• MySQL, SQL, Access
• LAMP, WAMP
  

Web-Design

• Standards Compliance & Design
• Validation
  
• User Interface Trends
• Complimentary Colors, the rule of 3
• Simplicity, not Graphic Intense
• Design for lowest medium possible
• Section 508

I know personally I have left out a lot. Just from that list though, it is obvious this field of work spans a wide variety of technologies to meet a specific, common purpose. This field of work isn't going to level off anytime soon. With technology trends and mobility increasing in demand with each day, the thirst to meet those needs will become even more evident.

Thank the Lord for my freelancing abilities - without them I could not up to date, ahead, or let alone in the game itself.