My Experience
Equipped with a Fine Arts Degree back in 1984 and now 30 years later, I've witnessed the life changing impact computers have made not only to the Graphics Indusrty but to our everyday lives. And the emergance of the World Wide Web, from it's infancy, to it's ever increasing grip on businesses and society.
Back in the 80's if you had a mobile phone it was the size of a brick and the battery was the size of a small car. Hand helds came out in the 90's in the form of PDA's from such companies as Palm Pilot® and Blackberry®. Now too many to count, however my iPhone 5 ROCKS!
The World of Web Design is an ever changing and adapting Industry, for me it's where I make my living. And these are the tools of my trade.
Angular the next Hot Technology!
Angular (also referred to as Angular 2+) is a web development platform built in TypeScript that provides developers with robust tools for creating the client side of web applications.
HTML 5
HTML5 is the fifth revision of the Hyper Text Markup Language standard. Its core aims have been to improve the language, with support for the latest multimedia, all while keeping it easily readable by humans and consistently understood by computers and devices. HTML5 is also cross-platform it does not care whether you are using a tablet or a smartphone, a netbook, notebook or a Smart TV. HTML5 can also be used to write web applications that still work when you are not online.
Most modern browsers now support local storage. Data placed in local storage is isolated for use only by the domain that stored it and persists after the browser is closed. Examples of local storage include cookies, userData, local databases, and the localStorage object. This allows Applaications to store changes in data and when a connection is available, sync the stored data with the Database server.
CSS 3
Cascading Style Sheets(CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the look and formatting of a document written in a markup language. Today programmable CSS is making it's way to the top with frameworks like LESS, Stylus and SASS. The benefits of being able to quickly change the colour scheme by replacing a few variables, add cross browser vendor prefixed CSS in one line and to quickly create grids tailored to your project far out weigh the portability of standard CSS.
I choose PatternFly. PatternFly is a open source project that promotes design commonality and improved user experience optimized for the enterprise IT space. Its offerings include visual and behavioral patterns based on research and UX best practices that solve common design problems. Sponsored by RedHat thier design process is iterative; the best ideas win until a new and better idea comes along. The framework is built on top of Bootstrap 3 and is licensed Apache 2.0. The PatternFly framework is available through a GitHub repository.
Javascript UI
Javascript UI Frameworks and Component Libraries like JQuery, AngularJS, Bootstrap, PatternFly, DHTMLx and several others provide a complete set of Ajax- powered UI components, used to build enterprise-level web apps with clean interface, fast performance, and rich user experience. These frameworks put the fun back in web design by providing consistant look n feel cross browser. No more hacking in special code for old, out dated, non-compliant browsers.
Being Self taught and always eager to learn more, I enjoy writing javascript. I remember writing my first rollover script and how gratifying it was to see it work, actually doing the happy dance in my office. I started building my own javascript library before libraries existed. I called them my little bag of tricks. Now I use PatternFly, AngularJS, DHTMLX and a few others that offer a full array of widgets and components that have been battle tested, well documented and maintained.
Favorite Quotes
Tony Stark: You know, it's moments like these when I realize how much of a superhero I am.
Scorpio: Your job will be to manage and motivate them. Give 'em the benefit of your years of experience.
Homer: Don't worry, that won't take long.