[DigitalSea]

Too true. These days front-end developers are expected to know frameworks and a plethora of lanauges which to me signals a company is trying to get not only a front-end developer but also is trying to get someone proficient in Rails or whatever language without paying more. "Oh, knowing Rails is a plus for this position" translates to, "We are going to pay you a $60k a year salary for a front-end position and get you to do the tasks of a Rails developer as well of which we pay $90k a year to" the line has been blurred you're either mostly front-end with a little knowledge of back-end and web apps like Wordpress and whatnot or you're backend with a little knowledge of front-end.

The wanky interview questions always make me laugh. Developers at their core are hackers, they know bits and pieces but not everything. A great developer doesn't know everything but knows what to type into Google when they need a solution to a problem. Collectively all of these tidbits create a cross-network of information developers share with one another. The questions that assume you are some all seeing, all knowing developer are a farce and you probably don't want to work at a place like that anyway.

The type of questions I would love to see being asked in front-end developer positions would be:

* What's the difference between display: inline-block and float: left?

* What is the default browser behaviour in a modern web browser when applying a padding left or right to an element with 100% with?

* How would you add a class to an element with the ID of, "content" via jQuery?

* Name two CSS browser vendor prefixes

* What is the difference between responsive design and adaptive design (bonus points for describing how and why one is easier and or harder than the other)?

* Which of these is not a valid CSS unit of measurement? px, pm, em, rem, %

* What is the difference between position: absolute and position: fixed?

These are questions good developers should know the answer too without Googling, they're not solutions they're somewhat basic things a front-end developer should know off of the top of his head.

Not:

* What are some of your favourite tech blogs to read?

* Can you please write a for loop that increments a counter?

* What web browser do you use?

* Can you recall a particular time when you found yourself solving a complex problem?

It's a tough economy and companies are always trying to get something extra for nothing. I've always had an issue with companies hiring so-called, designer/developers when we all know a true designer or developer doesn't fragment their time learning two crafts. You either become a great developer or a great designer not a mediocre hybrid who lacks full-understanding of each craft because you're too busy going back and forth with crafts.

[colemorrison]

A designer with no experience in development has a higher chance of creating a design that's difficult to implement. The amount of time wasted trying to explain to an illustrator CS buff why using vectors flying all over the place will be difficult... is ridiculous.

A developer with no experience in design has a higher chance of missing all of the features and nuances that make a sublime design kick ass (often the details a designer will ask for will be viewed as esoteric or anal..or esoterically anal).

Hybrids will do things like, look at illustrator...look at html5 canvas...and then combine the two into something awesome like Ai to Canvas. Hybrids will cut down your transition between design and development (which can be huge). Hybrids can cut down frictional labor costs. Hybrids can cross pollinate ideas between the two fields.

Case and point is that Hybrids are a class of their own. No, they may not have the extent of "depth" in their skill that a single focused dev or designer would, but that's because they have a "depth" in something different. And that "difference" is often innovative and far beyond what sticking to the "master of one" fallacy will do.

[DigitalSea]

"A designer with no experience in development has a higher chance of creating a design that's difficult to implement."

It's better to educate the designers yourself than have them educate themselves because it's not guaranteed they won't still ask for a design that's borderline impossible to be cut up by tomorrow. The place I work at the designers design and the developers develop and it works great for us. The designers liaison with the developers throughout the entire process, it's not a simple matter of letting the designers have free reign and then expect you to develop it. I might be one of the lucky few, but this is how all places should work. Designers and developers should sit together not be isolated from one another and only speak via a project manager which is how it seems to be at a lot of places. It's an us vs them mentality in the industry.

A lot of places I've worked prior to the place I've been working for a few years now have had this mentality that the designers know best. While a designer who understands what is possible is a viable asset, a designer who considers themselves a developer and gets in the way of the process to the point they're telling the developers what to do is counter-productive rather than working with the developers not against them and vice-versa.

I've encountered hybrids who have adequately been able to do both development and design, not in an advanced capacity but I've encountered lots of designers and developers who can easily design and knock up a Wordpress theme, however I've never come across a designer/developer who can design a complicated interface for a web application and be able to build it as well. I could be wrong and I don't doubt there are some super-talented people out there capable, but I see too many advertisements for hybrids that assume they're as common as trees in a forest.

[randomdata]

> I've always had an issue with companies hiring so-called, designer/developers when we all know a true designer or developer doesn't fragment their time learning two crafts.

I find it unfortunate that companies don't hire designer/developers more often. I've worked professionally in design and development roles, but it seems most companies want to keep them distinct, so I get typecast into one or the other. I want to be able to exercise all of my skills, especially when they are so closely linked in modern software.

You are right that time is definitely not on your side to try and do it, but I've been designing since elementary school and programming since high school, and had jobs doing both before graduating high school. I had an easy decade head start compared to anyone who might try the same in college. If you believe 10,000 hours to proficiency, that makes a huge difference.

Truth be told, I'm not sure how to accurately quantify my own abilities. Perhaps I really am mediocre at best, as you suggest. People seem to love the work I do though, whether it be design or development, so that is reason enough to continue with them both. Hopefully one day we can find tolerance of those who have an interest in both, and stop assuming all programmers cannot design.

[paddy_m]

I would love to hire a designer/developer. Can you get in touch with me via my profile.

[HaloZero]

That valid CSS unit measurement sounds like inane trivia to me. I've never had to use anything other than em, px, and % before and I've never even seen it in any open source projects.

[nickporter]

They are very useful when you want to build modular web components, and for just overall maintainability of your stylesheets.

I wouldn't reject someone because they don't know what rem is though! I'd think of the question as a bonus I guess.

[DigitalSea]

Definitely. You'd be silly to asses the skills of a developer based on such a question. My point was more-so that companies should ask questions developers would know instead of asking questions most developers would probably Google the answers to.

[porker]

I can answer all except "What's the difference between display: inline-block and float: left?". What is it?

I learned CSS when IE6 was new and shiny. I think there's a gap in the market for books to update skills - e.g. a "What's usable in CSS since IE6?". I still find odd things I can now use as I only have to target IE8+...

[just2n]

If you want to learn more about this, the visual formatting model in the CSS 2.1 spec is very readable: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/visuren.html.

If I were interviewing a candidate, I wouldn't expect them to be able to deeply recall most of that detail (though I'd expect them to be familiar with the basics). I'd accept an acknowledgement that floating an element takes it out of the flow, while using inline-block doesn't, as well as some further detail about what that means, what impacts/side effects it has on other elements and markup.

[pc86]

I like the questions. I do not consider myself a front-end developer although I enjoy working with JS. I don't know the answer to the first two, though.