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Comment by debaserab2 | Hacker News Reader

This may be true of front end devs in SF, but not in the agency world. Agencies need really competent HTML coders that can slice up designs into cross browser compatible HTML as quickly as possible. In most cases, elementary knowledge with jQuery suffices, and you'll never need to deal with node, angular, or backbone. When you're making websites for big clients, you have to deal with things like browser compatibility on every version of IE back to 7 (and yes, it is expected that those rounded borders work on IE7 and render the same as in chrome). You need an HTML star to pull that off.

Many of the frontend dev's I know graduated with art degrees and have little interest in backend or architectural coding. Their career path tends to lead more towards design or UX.

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> "When you're making websites for big clients, you have to deal with things like browser compatibility on every version of IE back to 7 (and yes, it is expected that those rounded borders work on IE7 and render the same as in chrome). You need an HTML star to pull that off."

Or a diligent resetter of expectations. And HTML star should be able to effectively argue against that sort of requirement. Otherwise, what are you paying him for? Markup monkeys are dime a dozen, and there's an A List Apart Sliding Doors article those code monkeys can just follow.

I'd expect more from an HTML star than just knowing how we did rounded corners before border-radius. I'd expect leadership, and standing for correctness.

In both Yahoo and Amazon we succeeded in pushing back against rounded corners in browsers that don't support border-radius. Because that's the pragmatic thing to do.

Browser compatibility doesn't mean pixel-exact layouts, it means that the core objectives of the site are functioning in a customer-supportive way.

Rarely do customers bring up the site in two browsers side-by-side and decide not to buy because the website wasn't identical in both.

You're right, and I often try to do as you say. But in the end the customer's wishes are the deciding factor for me, and unfortunately they often don't budge despite my argumentation. And I consider myself pretty good at convincing and explaining.

If I were a full-time employee, I would fight hard, but I feel that my role as a freelancer is to inform, and then do as the client asks anyways, within reason. Rounded corners on ie7 is within reason, as far as I'm concerned.

Obviously if a client keeps insisting on all sorts of ridiculous things, my enjoyment of the project plummets and I might look elsewhere for projects that I actually enjoy. But that's only because I can afford to say no in the current economy.

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