Front End Coding Standards

You might be wondering… “Why do I need to follow standards if I’m the only front-end (UI) developer working on this project?” That may be true for the moment, but you have to consider the long-term perspective. During time-crunch, the project may bring in additional developers to help with delivery. After go-live, the client may bring the site in-house for enhancements and new features. Perhaps, future development may be implemented by another company. These are scenarios which you need to consider regarding your code.

Coding is like hand-writing. After awhile, you begin to see patterns of how one indents their code line-by-line, or their preference of camelCase over dash-separators. Personally, I like to KISS – “keep it short, simple“. Don’t over complicate your code based on personal preferences. Think of the bigger picture and you’ll make everyone else’s life easier.

Remember, what you deliver as a front-end developer can be easily viewed by any visitor to the website. A simple view-source reveals what you’ve coded. Front-end code wrought with invalid mark-up and error-laden code can be leveraged by your competitors to get their foot in the door.

In the next blog entries, I will be discussing best practices and standards for HTML, CSS and JavaScript – without making it overbearing.