Web developers and web designers are both essential in the Internet economy, and play decidedly different roles despite the fact people use the terms interchangeably. Although design sensibility and familiarity with web design software can help, web developers are definitely not designers. Neither are web developers hardware specialists, cabling equipment together in cramped but air-conditioned areas.

Quite simply, a web developer is a kind of software engineer, one that conceives, develops and runs applications that support the operation of the World Wide Web. Generally speaking, these types of programs deliver a particular server's content to a client or end-user through a web browser. Every day, around the globe, web developers create and tailor software to make all the various parts of the worldwide system work together.

Education for preparation

Typically, web developers have a college-level education and major industry certifications from Novell, Cisco, Microsoft and Oracle. These are the companies that set the standards in the industry and whose exams developers must pass to be certified. Ongoing training ensures that they stay updated on technology that changes on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis. Web developers need to have training in the leading programming languages, too, an area many of them begin to study long before they get to college.

The programming languages and "development environments" that web developers use fall into the two hemispheres of the IT world—(1) the server side and (2) the client side. On the server side they work with C++, Java and VB.net, and scripting languages PHP, Perl and VBScript. On the client side their work involves JavaScript, XHTML, XML and CSS.

Wild ride on the design side

Web developers are not designers, as pointed out previously, but often are familiar with the high-end web design software programs like Front Page, Adobe Dreamweaver and Expression Web 2. Web designers, of course, are not only familiar with these, but have the full range of creative applications in their toolboxes—Photoshop, paint programs, Illustrator, word processors, the whole collection. They need to manipulate images, colors, text and other elements to create the look, feel and actions that web visitors expect on the Internet.

One of the fastest-growing areas of creativity in the last several years has been animation. Web designers have now added to their skill set new programs, such as Flash and Flex, that allow them to create animated graphics, motion sequences, "flying type effects and other creations that bring life to the Internet. Working with video and audio media is also a requirement, since these are the components that bring the richness to "rich media."

Putting the pieces together

Web designers need to understand the behavior of the various pieces that go into a page, site and domain, not from an infrastructure level, but the perceptual level. A designer needs to put herself in the place of Internet surfers and understand how they "see" and navigate their way around the web. This understanding will inform her choices as to how she puts together the pages, links them to others and creates the overall environment, making disparate parts into one coherent whole.

It certainly does not hurt designers to learn as much of the "behind the scenes" technology as they can. It is not necessary to become as expert as web developers with programming languages, but knowledge of basic HTML and CSS is definitely required. If designers do not do as much "hand coding" as they once did, it is because the tools have advanced to the point where the work doesn't require it. Interestingly, the roles of web developers and web designers used to be much more alike, and the roles grew apart at precisely the rate that WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) software arrived on the web design scene.

Going forward together?

The most efficient, effective websites are those in which the design elements, the look and feel, and the functionality make an "organic" whole. The designers have learned more about the technical side, and are working closer than ever with web developers to see their creations brought to life. It is not likely that the two roles, merged into one position in the "old days," will ever be combined again, as both are full-time jobs requiring a serious commitment of time and effort to master—and stay up-to-date on, too.

Although the positions won't become a hybrid any time soon, developers and designers will continue working closely together to bring the best look, feel and functionality to the most robust, fault-tolerant and secure Internet possible. The "techies" will team up with the "artsy" folks to make sure this happens, and will doubtless keep the momentum moving forward for the good of all Internet users. There are definite differences between web developers and web designers, as outlined here, but they share something more important, which is a commitment to creating and sustaining an efficient, effective, entertaining and educational global utility we call "the web."