Wow. It sounds like you are working for the same company I worked - for a very brief time. Is this a JavaScript shop by any chance? ;)
Regardless, you've been there four months; that's long enough to have made it work. It's toxic and abusive and you have to remove yourself from the situation ASAP. If you can afford to quit before finding another job, do so.
I do appreciate all the advice of how to make this work, and it's good advice in general, but bad advice for this situation. While the abuse may ease up after a while, the pecking order will remain the same and they will still be assholes. It's hard to learn through a bruised ego or a broken spirit.
On a side note, I have been the dumbest person in a company. I compensated by being the hardest working. The "smart ones" loved that I did the work while they did smart things.
I think he gets it. He's responding to companies blindly mandating jQuery as its development language whether it's the right solution or not, due to its popularity.
I will however fault him for taking the job in the first place. I apply to JavaScript jobs, not jQuery jobs.
I would recommend using The Dojo or The DojoApp. The DojoApp is probably better as The Dojo is still not only competing with the toolkit but also with hundreds of karate sites.
I'd like to hear some opinions on this myself. I personally don't think it matters anymore, but every time I get an idea for a product/domain, I get told "No. It should have a dot-com." Hm, really? Should it? I like how Delicious went from De.licio.us to delicious.com when they had the money. Most devs can't afford simple domain names.
It depends on what you mean by "real developer". If you are a PHP guy who just needs some plugins on his page, you're good not knowing what's in the black box. If you plan to put JavaScript on your resume, not knowing how jQuery works under the hood is not going to cut it.
Look at it in reverse. I decide not to learn C#, even though I have an idea of how they work. Do I need to know how to query a database? No, I can leave that to someone else and concentrate on JavaScript and call those ASPX APIs. But I don't plan to put C# on my resume.
I agree. HTML5 is a buzzword that gets companies excited about technology, and when that happens, I get paid.
But otherwise, what is going on here is that Mozilla is part of WHATWG, who is largely responsible for the success of HTML5. WC3 actually wanted to drop support for HTML (calling it done) and only within the last year decided to jump in the bandwagon and take credit. And then along the way, get things wrong - like this list of the Mozilla page.
I've always said, "to clients, it's ALL HTML5, but to developers, we should know the difference". But the WC3 is clouding that difference.
It's funny to me that we think nothing of stopping at the gas station and buying a diet coke for two bucks... But when we need to decide between healthy food and crap food all of the sudden that two dollars means so much. Oh How well we have been conditioned by advertising.
The difference between a dev and an engineer is a bit semantic. I would say an engr has the additional task of being a leader, overseeing the project, and implementing the QA.
That said, no, it's not clearly defined, and there are dozens of not hundreds of different tasks a FED could have a role in. Graphical design, UI, UX, usability, SEO, and multimedia just to name a few.
Probably most critical though, a FED has to really keep up with emerging technologies. HTML5 didn't even exist a few years ago. Ajax is only 6ish years old. Flash is a necessary skill to help with IE's failings. And Flash != Flex != AS3.
Oops. I submitted mine then saw this request. In hindsight I see this is a horrible thing to do and is not in line with the seriousness we face in the world today. I will stop writing humorous posts and go back to watching the price of silver and purchase a the fresh water tanks I've been thinking about. Looking for a way to vote down submissions...
I spend a lot of time at it, though hopefully not too much. Maybe 5-10% of my working day.
You absolutely must start with a blog or a website for your home base. Then you go to YComb, LinkedIn, Stackoverflow, and ask and answer questions. Be sure to use the same user name for as many sites as you can so you become recognizable. First initial, last name is actually preferable - when dealing with your field you don't want to hide behind an anonymous user name (like AnM8tR - groan....). You can use fancy user name for movie sites.
I use http://clubajax.org to write my blogs, and while they are informative blogs, I learn an incredible amount; because I do research before hand to ensure that I'm giving correct advice.
It seems to me the right answer is you build a web app because it solves the problem. The problem may be to promote yourself or it's part of your job - but I hope the answer isn't to build a web app when a web page (or desktop app, etc) would suffice.
Your book looks good BTW. I'd be curious to read it.
Regardless, you've been there four months; that's long enough to have made it work. It's toxic and abusive and you have to remove yourself from the situation ASAP. If you can afford to quit before finding another job, do so.
I do appreciate all the advice of how to make this work, and it's good advice in general, but bad advice for this situation. While the abuse may ease up after a while, the pecking order will remain the same and they will still be assholes. It's hard to learn through a bruised ego or a broken spirit.
On a side note, I have been the dumbest person in a company. I compensated by being the hardest working. The "smart ones" loved that I did the work while they did smart things.