I started getting into web design back in highschool, when responsive websites were just getting started. I thought it was so magical how you could resize the browser window and all of the content would adapt to fit the size. I remember people would even take the time to make animations for these transitions, even though they would almost never be seen. It was this curiosity that sparked my next seven years of web development (I'm 22 now).
I have had so much fun working in all areas of web development. Frontend is the area I prefer and where I believe I stand out amongst developers. I can feal the frontend of the web dieing though. Not necessarily the frontend as a career, but as an art. It is morphing into cookie cutter templates that we'll just slap together. Why do these templates exist? Because the vast majority of senior developers wrote off CSS and HTML as a joke. It was never an appreciated skill to be talented at and basically seen as programming for babies. This was always a confusing narrative for me growing up, as in practice it was almost always the opposite. We would be burning money every time a CSS change was needed and implement bad architecture after bad architecture. This attitude has spiraled to where we are now. Bloated frontends, with no CSS in sight. Just a bunch of strung together boilerplate code that form a generic looking website. This consistent lack of respect for web design has led to a dwindling community of developers capable of making a maintainable custom website.
The last couple of months I have been really curious how web development skills would translate to developing games. This weekend I finally decided to give game development a shot, and followed a tutorial series on Godot(game engine) and Blender(modeling software). This led to a shocking revelation for me. I had thought that I would enjoy Godot better, and pick it up quicker, because it was more centered around programming. Boy, was I wrong. Although, Blender and 3D modeling was completely new to me, it somehow felt so familiar at the same time. I quickly realized that Blender shares many characteristics with CSS and coding (I may write a new post to cover these similarities). To put it simply, there just two different mediums for art.
I am already hooked to Blender. It feels like I'm starting programming all over again. Blender also has a flourishing constructive community around it that has left me feeling very inspired. While I still work full time as a web application developer, I am going to transition from making personal website projects, to making personal games instead. I still love web development, but I'm excited to get started building out a new skill and chapter of my life. Time to make some games!
Note: Incase your wondering if I'm just all talk about my frontend skills, checkout my portfolio. I also have a YouTube channel where I have done speed web design for intricate design cases.