Navigating a Series of Tubes
Mike Ebert
Personal web development journey began in 1992
Dad was a software developer
Had a computer, let me play Castles II, and challenged me to learn Pascal
All types of schooling, including home school
Took AP Computer Science on my own
BYU: 1999 – 2006
Computer Science with a business minor
Friend introduced me to web pages and all the builds of Firefox
Building web pages with tables and spacer gifs
BYU: 1999 – 2006
Served a mission in Russia 2001-2003
Changed majors because of conflict between school and being engaged
Business major (marketing emphasis)
But took a CSS class and an Internet marketing course
Sebo Marketing
Internship doing marketing
Found out I knew stuff about websites
CSS 2 and the div revolution
Internet Explorer 6 compatibility issues
Sebo Marketing
Graduated in 2006
Led website and then technical services team
Custom CMS in .Net, PHP
Hand-written JavaScript functions
Fonts
WordPress 2.3
Alliance Web Marketing
Tried to run a marketing agency, but really did mostly web development
WordPress (various versions)
jQuery
Responsive Web Design (RWD)
Perfect Search/IMAT Solutions
Web development, then Angular web development for a medical search and records product
JavaScript, baby!
Angular
WhiteCanyon
Website rebuild with huge results
Static site generation, headless
DVO
Working on a useful app for a company with very stable demand
React
Luhnar
Co-founder
CDN
Got crushed by COVID
Indicio
Verifiable credentials and self-sovereign identity
Team lead, bring all my talents to bear
One thing I'm proud of is having the opportunity to mentor and help launch careers
Where we're going
Consolidating of CMS and store options
WYSIWYGs that don't generate garbage
Voice interaction
Where we're going
Serverless
SSR
Edge delivery
Where we're going
Security and privacy
Block chain
Web 1, 2, 3, 5 …
Where we're going
Big data sets
AI-generated code
Quantum computing
What to expect as a web developer
Change will be constant
Get asked to do stuff that is only tangential to what you're actually "supposed" to do …
Interact across disciplines, teams, companies, time zones, nations, languages …
Your title may not be that applicable or that big a deal
Keys to the Process
Remote work is entirely possible but has its own challenges
What do you call a group of programmers?
A merge conflict
Keys to the Process
The process and the communication is as important as the code
Keys to the Process
Estimating is hard
Hofstadter's Law:
It always takes longer than you expect,
even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.
Industry Growth and Leadership
Demand is high for technically capable people
Management is an option, leadership is a must
Morality is your gift to the world as you shape the future of humanity
Always be learning
Get your fundamentals down
Find sources that will help you stay up to date
Save some time for side projects
Have a focus or emphasis in addition to programming
Live in the real world
Get a great chair and don't sit in it all the time
Exercise, have adventures offline
Don't let web development get in the way of what's truly important
Push hard to grow
Step up for new responsibility
Try new things, do what scares you
Don't get stuck in a bad situation
Your purpose may not be visible until it's in hindsight
Resume presentation
Navigating a Series of Tubes Mike Ebert
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