{"id":698,"date":"2008-11-26T21:13:57","date_gmt":"2008-11-27T04:13:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bspcn.com\/2008\/11\/26\/15-things-every-web-developer-should-be-thankful-for\/"},"modified":"2008-11-26T21:13:57","modified_gmt":"2008-11-27T04:13:57","slug":"15-things-every-web-developer-should-be-thankful-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/2008\/11\/26\/15-things-every-web-developer-should-be-thankful-for\/","title":{"rendered":"15 Things Every Web Developer Should Be Thankful For"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by Glen<\/a><\/p>\n

\"developer<\/a><\/p>\n

With Thanksgiving only a couple days away, it’s appropriate to look back on the things that we appreciate best about our jobs. Let’s face it: Web Developers have the best jobs around, right? We’re incredibly lucky to have the professions we do.<\/p>\n

Here are 15 things that we all<\/em> should be thankful for. These are the technologies that we couldn’t live without, or that have previously paved the way and allowed us to be<\/strong> web developers.<\/p>\n

1. Mosaic<\/h3>\n

Graphic designers everywhere should reserve a day in November to give thanks to the software that’s enabled our careers. Without Mosaic’s<\/a> picture support, the Internet doesn’t need good design. The 1993 launch of this web browsing software opened up a brand new world to web developers and web browsers alike.<\/p>\n

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Photo by Marc_Smith<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2. Firefox<\/h3>\n

Firefox<\/a> ended the long tyranny of IE oppression for experienced web users. The extension-enabled browser has forced IE to play catch up and improve their lukewarm browser, which hadn’t seen an update for 5 years.<\/p>\n

Aside from pushing a standards-based browsing initiative, the ability to extend Firefox has made the developers life much<\/em> easier. There are oodles of extensions that are nearly essential to the developer.<\/p>\n

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Photo by psd<\/a>.<\/p>\n

3. Browsershots.org<\/h3>\n

Every web developer knows the awful pain that is making designs constant across different browsers. Thanks to Browsershots<\/a>, we can easily see a screenshot of any page across a multitude of different browsers, showing potential problems that might arise across different browsers, and giving new reason to invent curses for legacy IE versions.<\/p>\n

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4. Firebug<\/h3>\n

Thanks to Firefox, we now have a browser that is also an important tool for the web developer. Firebug<\/a> is a must-have extension for the web developer. With this nifty little extension you can view just about any aspect of the web page, visible or behind the scenes, and modify it real-time. It’s incredibly useful for designers and programmers alike.<\/p>\n

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Photo by zeroK<\/a>.<\/p>\n

5. Google Code<\/h3>\n

If you’re trying to find a useful snippet of code, there’s no place better than Google Code<\/a>. Not only is it a great place to search for entire libraries, you can find useful bits of code that might be hard to find otherwise. If you’re wanting to house a project, you’ll be especially thankful for G Code, as it’s a free and easy way to have a working community for a project without hosting costs.<\/p>\n

Also, with Google Code you can use Google’s bandwidth<\/a> for the javascript libraries included in your projects. Using jQuery<\/a>? Just call Google’s hosted version and be on your way. No need to slow your own server down with Google’s gracious offer.<\/p>\n

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6. Frameworks<\/h3>\n

Frameworks have given developers a major reason to be thankful. Gone are the days of building websites around repetitive code. Using frameworks like Rails<\/a>, Django<\/a> or CakePHP<\/a> on websites needing database interaction and user permissions takes a major burden off of the programmer. They can spend less time on common, tedious code and more on the interesting and unique. It’s a powerful paradigm shift in programming.<\/p>\n

Here are some of the major frameworks used today, in no particular order.<\/p>\n