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In the past 10 years of Web development, I've seen a lot of change. And the future of Web development looks very interesting at the moment. For a long time, Web developers worked mainly on static and dynamic client-side code (html, javascript, css). We created mostly documents, not applications. And dynamic meant something on the page moved, not that we were loading new data in real time and actually connecting people in rich communication, like we do now.
Today, thankfully, we have many more projects that require a more robust solution than pasting JavaScript code from a tutorial into your static HTML file and calling it a day. And you can't really just work in just an HTML editor anymore. At least, I can't.
Today, we work much more in frameworks, like JQuery. And the client-side JavaScript frameworks in included in other server-side frameworks, like Rails.
Today, we need to know many more languages as well, including OOP. For example, in my case, I worked as a multimedia developer for several years making Flash video and MP3 players and Web pages embedding my customer players. When I switched from ActionScript 2.0 to ActionScript 3.0, my projects required a much more sophisticated understanding and real implementation of OOP from me than I had previously needed when creating ActionScript 2.0-based multimedia players. The same was true when I started creating Rails sites in addition to PHP sites. PHP development now also includes MVC frameworks like CodeIgnitor. A Web developer needs to be a true programmer now. MVC and OOP skills are not optional.
Today, Web development commonly requires more sophisticated tools as well. And it requires Web developers who know how to use them. In the past, we have not really had an intergrated development environment (IDE) on par with application development IDEs. Dreamweaver is a great editor, but it doesn't have a debugger, for example. JavaScript development has been a major pain without a debugger. But the world has changed and every Web developer needs to recognize that. The days of notepad are obviously over, but so are the days of Dreamweaver for any serious Web application development in PHP or other languages, such as the new kid on the block, Ruby on Rails. This includes all client-side development, including Flash development.
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