Cimex

It’s not often I find myself agreeing with people who (to my biased eyes) seem to spend more time on the conference circuit than pushing pixels and sharpening syntax, but today is one of those days.

I find myself agreeing with Mr Andy Budd about “The Sorry State of Web Design Education”, and by extension the state of Web Development Education.

As an entirely self taught web monkey I find the quality of code output that I come across to be enormously variable, both in terms of client-side code - (X)HTML, CSS, JS - and server-side code (although I only really speak PHP, and I make most of that up as I go along).

Whilst many of the best and most talented developers I have met have no formal training there are a select few who have come from formal educational backgrounds and have really impressed me with their skills and knowledge, but I don’t know of too many educational establishments that are really pushing the agenda when it comes to modern development practices.

Whilst self-taught skills are good (and show a desire to do something specific rather that simply having received instruction in a particular technology or technique), but I really do think that good schooling in modern techniques would help us to usher in a new generation of talented people and usher out some of the desperate old hacks who are still clinging on and making money that could otherwise be filling some of the holes in my bank account.

So how do we fix this?

Is it down to the Budds and Zeldmans, the Santa-Maria’s and the Frieds? Or can we lowly mortals without  big industry profile or a string of speaking engagements chip in?

More internships? More “real world” conferences? I for one don’t ascribe much value to conferences / short events as a way of “learning” anything - they’re great for inspiration and networking, but sitting in a room with hundreds of people while a talking head or ten espouse the virtues of whatever takes their fancy teaches next to nothing other than (hopefully) how to get your employers to stump up for your day (or two) out of the office.

Internships might well be a way forward, but I can just see that failing in an epic fashion in a busy web studio - I barely have enough time to do my own work most of the time, let alone mentoring an intern or sharing my (obviously valuable and finely honed) skills and experience.

Do we then have a responsibility of sorts to make the time to share our knowledge and skills in the name of the common good and the advancement of our industry?

Morally, quite possibly. In the harsh light of day, maybe not so much - it’s a sad truth, but I’ve got bills to pay and as much as I like the utopian ideal of donating some of my time to help others become “better” I just don’t have enough of it to go round as it is.

So, how do we nurture the next generation of talented individuals in our industry? Answers on a postcard to the usual address, please…