Evolving with the technology
A screeching noise pierced the air. I stared at the screen while my dial-up modem struggled to download the rest of the data. I waited patiently as a white rectangle appeared in the center of the monitor. A minute later, a repetitive image pattern started to cover the background. Finally, the texts showed up, and I smiled while looking at the first webpage I ever saw.
At this moment, I decided I would love to build my own websites. And a few months later, my first page became a reality. Technically speaking, it was a table-based horror, a Frankenstein monster made of chunks of HTML, and the very beginning of a thrilling journey.
Fast forward more than two decades. After conducting multiple experiments, reading several books, obtaining a college degree in software engineering plus a specialty course in web design, completing many professional projects, and keeping a never-ending desire to learn, you’ll find me using clean modern HTML as the foundation of pretty much all the software interfaces I create.
My HTML knowledge at the present day
It is surprising how the HTML landscape has changed in the last years, and how ubiquitous it has become. I find that my front-end development workflow revolves around using HTML: first turning a quickly sketched wireframe into a polished design, then into a first prototype, and finally into a full-working website.
And nowadays, pretty much all application interfaces seem to be sustained by an HTML core. After all, a web-based interface is a pretty human-friendly way to connect users with the smart capabilities of the software that lies behind, especially in terms of online applications and web services.
Judging from my previous work experiences, the applications that I coded at the other side of my HTML front-ends can be very diverse: from tools with almost real-time requirements, to private intranets, or even online e-commerce stores, including optimizations to make them load in just a few seconds.
Moreover, the technology keeps evolving, and so do these HTML front-ends. In my latest projects the interfaces would remain easy-to-use no matter what device our users’ have (the so-called responsive design.)
And it is possible to create impressive animation and dynamic effects that don’t require Flash anymore, thanks to Javascript, and especially to the the latest versions and improvements of HTML5 and CSS3, in websites inspired by material design, that are a pleasure to use.
Chances are that your next software project will end up using some HTML in its front end. So don’t hesitate to contact me if you need a programmer to take care of that.