Why is it that everyone with Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and a dot com fancies themselves a web developer? I have to ask this of myself all of the time here in Edmonton where complete, crap, “web developers” are a dime a dozen. I am left baffled as to who is paying these people money to ply their trade when there are plenty of great web developers here in Edmonton. (I am currently wondering what effect my linking to a site with the word “crap” will have on Google’s PageRank).

I know brilliant web developers. I go to work every day with people who I think are smarter than me, and better than me at what they do. I personally am absolutely driven to create the best websites possible. I look to sites like suicide girls (NSFW, and yes I know it’s porn-ish, but I have never seen a site that was built better) or Bnet and tear through their source code to discover what they’re doing that makes their sites so spectacular. I drive myself, and all of the people who work with me, towards achieving that level of polish. Obviously time and budget always have an impact, and other projects always seem to get in the way, but at least I want it. At least I’m willing to try.

Honestly, it’s all of these half-assed, know nothing, under-achievers who sully the title “web developer” and force us to hide our shame behind fancy titles like “application developer” or “technical manager”. I always get the same blank stare from people when they ask “what do you do?” and I reply “I am a web developer.” Always. It’s a looks that says, “ooh, sorry.” My personal favorite are the people who say “my 14 year old nefew can build websites, he just jumps right in there and codes away.” Yeah? Really? Wanna know a secret? Your 14 year old nefew is a loser, the sites he builds are complete crap, and he has no friends at school. He probably only learned half assed HTML so that his WoW clan could have a homepage.

Web professionals need to unite. I get the feeling that many of us do not understand that we are the generation that will define this occupation. It is our responsibility to explain to people the difference between “knowing Frontpage” and knowing how to build a content managed, standards driven, accessible, easy to use, attractive, and most of all effective web site. The very existence of the multitudes of completely useless web design companies out there is a constant insult to everything I dedicate my life to professionally, and they must be stopped.