Comments on: Hiring a web front-end engineer and a rant

By: Todd Huss

Todd Huss — Tue, 09 May 2006 15:37:03 +0000

htmlvalidator, thanks for catching that, I’ve fixed it. I still maintain that a front end developers portfolio site should show off their skills of which one of those should be writing validating HTML or XHTML. If I’m looking for a designer to create full page photoshop comps then I’m looking for artistic skills so I don’t care if their site validates, but if I’m looking for a front-end developer to take comps and implement them in XHTML, CSS, and Javascript then I struggle to believe anyone would defend that person having a non-validating portfolio site.

By: htmlvalidator

htmlvalidator — Tue, 09 May 2006 01:35:09 +0000

Nice rant. Your next page (Enhancements to SubModal) doesn’t validate.

By: Chuck Cheeze

Chuck Cheeze — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 08:16:22 +0000

Ouch, sounds right up my alley but unfortunately I fall in the boat of most-past-sites not validating. Luckily I am currently rebuilding my design firm site (http://www.webinception.com) and so far it validates as I am in process with building it. I’ve been working with a private comapny for a few years now so my chops have been on thier intranet for getting up on valid coding, thus I wouldn’t have much to show anyway. Good luck witht he search…

By: Todd Huss

Todd Huss — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 02:28:59 +0000

Charles, I’d be happy if even a few of the sites I looked at validated at all, HTML 4 or XHTML. The bottom line is most personal portfolio sites are full of invalid HTML, display no understanding of proper CSS, and in my opinion there’s just no excuse for it from people who produce HTML for a living. I’ve phone interviewed a bunch of candidates and so far the only 2 that were worth interviewing in person had sites that validate so I think it’s a pretty good benchmark.

By: Charles Miller

Charles Miller — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 20:58:56 +0000

I’d balk at requiring XHTML for a personal site. There are all sorts of problems with serving XHTML, so it’s only really a good idea to use it if you’ve got to process the site in some way as XML. Otherwise, HTML4 is probably more correct.

Also with portfolio sites, you often run into the “the cobbler’s children are barefoot” problem. I remember when I worked for a mostly web-design firm, improving our own site was always on that “we really need to do it, but we’re snowed under with paid work” list. We just sent prospective customers links to sites we’d developed for other customers, and nervously coughed about our own site.