The internet is awash with web-celebrities; designers and developers (‘rockstars?’) who have, for whatever reason, amassed countless followers and people hanging on their every word. This is great, and can get the message from some of the industry’s best to the masses via one blog post and a few tweets. Or is it? Just because someone has over ten thousand followers does not necessarily mean that they know the best techniques, or what the most efficient, accessible and trustworthy solution is.
One comment, one person; who is your unsung hero?
I don’t follow many web-celebrities, I don’t find that they’re always the best source of quality content, nor are they necessarily the first to invent or do something—people just get the impression they were because no one else saw the humble guy who lives down the road tweeting about it two months ago.
The best developers out there, you’ve probably never even heard of.
So I’ve decided to do an unsung heroes post. Leave one comment with one designer/developer who you feel is underrated, at the top of their game, an inspiration, and someone who deserves more recognition than they get.
I’ll kick things off with my suggestion: Jens Meiert. Now he’s not a total unknown, but certainly deserving of a far wider audience.
- Name
- Jens Meiert
- URL
- http://meiert.com/en/
- @j9t
- Keywords
- Semantics, Sensibility, Development, Efficiency, Simplicity
- Notes
- Since as long as I can remember I’ve been reading Jens’ site. The way he builds shares my ideals almost exactly. He looks at things in the most objective way, he builds with maintainability, scalability and efficiency in mind. His knowledge is concentrated on front-end build, but spans a lot in that area. He codes to very high standards and in a way that is ideally suited to teamwork, as all code should be. He writes code that is shareable and lean, understandable and efficient, and above all else, sensible. He doesn’t talk about ‘how to create fancy download buttons’ or ‘woohoo look at the latest CSS3 whatsit!’, he writes about things that actually matter. He talks from a business oriented viewpoint where things are really most important; creating code of a high standard that works now and will work in five years time. This is what building websites is about, creating a quality product that will stand the test of time and is built efficiently and sensibly. If everyone worked like Jens I firmly believe we’d all be happier in our jobs. Not enough people out there really put much thought into what they’re coding, they tend to focus more on how the end result will look. Not Jens, I get absolutely fanatical about his ethics and qualities; he exhibits a true understanding for his profession, an understanding that really really deserves attention above and beyond that of most of the people writing on similar subjects. A quick flick through his archives and I’m sure you can very quickly see what I mean. This is standards at its finest.
So there we have it, my ‘unsung hero’. Who’s yours? Copy/paste the following template to add your unsung hero to the discussion. Who has been an inspiration to you? Who do you wish more people listened to? Let’s get the discussion under way and see who really keeps this industry on the up.
<dl>
<dt>Name</dt>
<dd>Jens Meiert</dd>
<dt>URL</dt>
<dd><a href="http://meiert.com/en/">http://meiert.com/en/</a></dd>
<dt>Twitter</dt>
<dd><a href="http://twitter.com/j9t">@j9t</a></dd>
<dt>Keywords</dt>
<dd>Semantics, Sensibility, Development, Efficiency, Simplicity</dd>
<dt>Notes</dt>
<dd>Since as long as I can remember I've been reading Jens' site. The way he builds shares my ideals almost exactly. He looks at things in the most objective way, he builds with maintainability, scalability and efficiency in mind. His knowledge is concentrated on front-end build, but spans a lot in that area. He codes to a very high standards and in a way that is ideall suited to teamwork, <em>as all code should be</em>. He doesn't talk about 'how to create fancy download buttons' or 'woohoo look at the latest CSS3 whatsit!', he writes about things that actually matter. He talks from a business oriented viewpoint where things really matter; creating code of a high standard that works now and will work in five years time. This is what building websites is about, creating a quality product that will stand the test of time, is built efficiently and sensibly. If everyone worked like Jens I firmly believe we'd all be happier in our jobs.</dd>
</dl>By Harry Roberts on Wednesday, October 20th, 2010 in Web Development. Tags: Industry, Personalities | 6 Comments »
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James said on 20 October, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Great idea, looking forward to seeing some more work from non “rockstars”.
Took a look at Jens’s site and like you I agree with most of his posts that I read through but this was total bollocks http://meiert.com/en/blog/20100514/real-debugging-tools/
J.
Ted Goas said on 20 October, 2010 at 2:14 pm
Nils Helmersson said on 20 October, 2010 at 2:25 pm
Andreas philström @suprb
Emil Olsson
@emilolsson
Leon said on 20 October, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Ismael said on 20 October, 2010 at 5:04 pm
http://www.basiclines.com
Ivan Nikolić said on 21 October, 2010 at 12:07 pm
Great article, Harry. Been following Jens’ posts for some time now and love his thoughts on front-end development.
I can name more people, but since you said one person, I will leave at that :).