The concept that practice leads to perfection is flawed. There is no perfect practice—merely perfect academic exercises such as school assignments that can be done for instructors or proof of concepts created as examples for clients.
Technology, scope, client relationships and implementations could always be done better when viewed in hindsight.
This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try for perfection.
Only by going through real-world development with clients and attempting—successfully or not—to launch internal projects (often with punishing deadlines) do we hone our skills, learn our lessons, and, importantly, become strong enough and flexible enough to apply those lessons “the next time.” That’s striving for excellence, also known as professionalism.
Although learning specific skills and techniques and standards is critical to our becoming better developers, there are key areas that can be imparted only by working on actual Web development projects: communication, adaptation, and persistence.
The Internet is about communication. The list of technologies that facilitate human contact goes on and on: instant messaging, email, VoIP when the telephone gets dated. Those meetings your colleagues describe as too long and pointless could instead be about finding consensus, focused on agreeing on the best solutions, if everyone has already discussed the problems before they reached the meeting room.
Beginning Web developers test—and sometimes break—the rules for good development as they learn what works and what doesn’t. Of course it’s important to pick up what’s right and wrong, black and white, but it’s equally important to be able to see the grey, ambiguous area and know that the “best” solution isn’t always, well, the best.
For example, sometimes loading a page up with the appropriate DOCTYPE-, Section 508-compliant tags hinders Google too much for it to deliver a fast experience for its users, and you have to ditch the DOCTYPE tags. Even the best techniques and technologies can be thrown out of the window as long as you know how that will affect your audience. Adaptation is about knowing when to break the rules for the right reasons.
Life happens. Vendors overstate their competencies. Clients change the scope of their projects. Web developers get sick or, worse, go on honeymoons.
A professional takes on the project or part of the project he or she has been given and doesn’t let go. Circumstances change, but a true professional makes sure a project doesn’t get out of hand, persisting with the help of communication and adaptation. It’s not easy—but then, nothing of value ever is.
The following case studies showcase how developers tackled their projects. They used the skills and Web standards to the best of their abilities to create some of the most highly profiled sites on the Web. Thankfully, their mistakes and failures can be shared to allow us to better make the next generation of sites.