Ten Years In: How Front-End Has Grown Up (and Out)

A reflection on how the job has changed since I started.

When I started, front-end development mostly meant making pages look right in several browsers that disagreed on principle. The job now reaches into performance, accessibility, tooling and product decisions, which is progress, although it has made answering "what do you do?" considerably less convenient.

The useful question behind “Ten Years In: How Front-End Has Grown Up (and Out)” is what changes in the work afterwards. A sound idea should improve a real decision, not only give us a neat phrase for describing it.

The answer is rarely a universal rule. It is a way of looking at the decision clearly enough to choose on purpose.

Prefer the thing that survives contact

Front-end work has a habit of looking simple from a distance. The browser then introduces real content, small screens, old devices, keyboard navigation and somebody using the product in a way nobody drew in the design file.

That is why I favour choices that are easy to inspect. Start with semantic HTML, let CSS do the layout work it was designed for, and add JavaScript where it creates genuine value. Cleverness is occasionally useful; legibility is useful every day.

The best front-end code does not show off. It makes the interface feel obvious.

The web is wonderfully forgiving, but users should not have to rely on that forgiveness. Build from sturdy foundations and the interesting parts become much easier to enjoy.

The details will change from project to project. The underlying habit of paying attention travels well.