I spend most of my working hours on the front-end side of web development, so I tend to be pretty anal about… everything. Work related, that is.

So my buddy Neil Sarkar recently wrote about being lazier when it comes to programming. Though there’s some wavering of topic, the main idea is that as programmers, it’s not so important to know everything all the time – it’s more important to know what you need, when you need it.

This is all based on the premise that everything you don’t know – or used to know – is only a Google search away.

While reading, I found myself agreeing and disagreeing all at the same time. Or maybe separate times. Anyways, more past the break!

First, the disagreeing: on the front end, client side – HTML, CSS, and Javascript – I can’t help but disagree. Standards based markup, separation of content & styles – all of that boring shit – is crucial on the front end. At least if you want to build maintainable, transportable, and duplicatable code. There are a number of boons past just the quality of your code – SEO is largely dependent on proper content structure, which is readily ignored across the majority of websites. But that’s why only a few have great SEO qualities.

Standards aren’t the kind of shit you can just fuckin google. You have to own them; take pride in your work, and steadily incorporate them as you grow as a developer. The immediate results are cleaner code, the long term results are less time spent coding. Not to mention less time spent on cross browser checks.

I will agree that “chill” coding works in regards to back end development – the PHP, Ruby, ASP, Coldfusion, etc etc. Here’s where the line between “coder” and “programmer” is drawn, in my opinion. We (should) use these languages to determine the information domains and logic behind our web apps etc. This is where we program the basic functionalities of our websites. It’s computer science.

And most computer science is inherently lazy. The first few computer programs simply made basic business data processing – like time sheets, payroll, etc – easier to calculate and manage than having a real person do it. That’s the computer’s initial, now cryptic interest. Making shit easier.

So why not get lazy when it comes to logic? That shit is hard, and never the most obvious. It takes research, thought, and more. There aren’t many strict guidelines to follow like there are with HTML and CSS. Sometimes the solution only comes when your brain is relaxed and unfocused on the matter at hand.

I will leave with this one thought though – I’ve been coding HTML since the 5th grade (I’m 23 at the time of writing this). I had a few breaks in between then and now, but my experience is extensive. I can look at a design and quickly judge how I’d approach coding it.

My experience with back end programming, and computer science in general, is mostly limited to basic MySQL queries and math calculations as far as web development goes, and of course all the shit I forgot from school. Perhaps, in upcoming years as I further embrace the back-end side of things, I’ll have a completely different opinion on being lazy.

It seems the more I know about something, my work will only get better with that bit of “elbow grease.” But when I’m not totally comfortable, and I have to learn, a chill, hands-not-on-24-7 approach could help. Time will tell.