Q & A With Chris Coyier
by Chris Coyier Last updated May. 8, 2018
Short intro by Kyle:
I'm sure you know who Chris is, but for those who don't know much about him, he runs one of the most popular blogs for developers called CSS-Tricks where he's helped and influenced millions of readers.
His answers are short and sweet, but very helpful.
Without further delay, here's Chris:
How Would You Sum Up CSS-Tricks to Those Who Don’t Know About It?
I think of CSS-Tricks in 3 ways:
1: It's like a magazine.
You can subscribe to it or read new content at your leisure. We're always working with staff and guest writers to produce technical articles around web design and development that are relevant today. I write there too, of course!
2: It's a long-term resource.
A lot of people land on CSS-Tricks from web searches to find answers to specific questions about web design and development. That's great, and we want to keep being as useful in that way as we can.
3: It's always evolving.
We're always (albeit slowly) trying new things and re-evaluating old things. We have forums. We have a gallery. We have screencasts. We have a shop. Things like that come and go as we have time and determine how useful they are.
If You Could Go Back to When You Started CSS Tricks, What Would You Do Differently?
I'm not sure much at all. I think of some technical stuff like I wish our entire archive was tagged better or that the data structure of some things was different, but some of that stuff simply wasn't possible when we started, so we've done the best we can on the journey.
We're all on a journey with the things we build. You can't go back in time, so the trick is learning and evolving as we go.
What Would You Say is the Biggest Contributor to Your Success?
Easily it's persistence.
I see this all the time now. The most successful people I see are those that have stuck with something for a long time through thick and thin.
The people and products that struggle are those that don't stick it out.
Most of us don't have incredible world-changing ideas. The good news is that you don't need one. You need a mediocre idea that you can build on over decades, while building yourself along the way.
Where Do You See Yourself In 5 Years & What Are You Working On?
I'll be five years smarter and my products will have had five more years to grow. The web will definitely still be here in 5 years. The web is the core of my career, so that's looking good.
That's both a long time and a short time. It's long in that technology changes over 5 years can be very dramatic. The libraries of today will be gone. New ways of working will have arrived. What browsers are capable of will have changes. Major ways that we work will have changed. Think of major evolutions like responsive design or single page applications.
Those were major shifts, and in 5 years, we'll have seen more things on that scale. I'll be riding those waves, and hopefully helping other people ride them.
What Soft Skills Would You Recommend to Developers?
You should be able to write a good email and manage your inbox.
Even writing a good email, foundational, comes from your general communication sensibility and a base level of empathy.
I'm also a general fan of being a "T" shaped person where you have some deep technical skills, perhaps fairly specialized, but you also have a broad understanding of the world you work and live in.
You might not be a designer, but you're aware of how design works and what design tooling is out there. You might not be a database engineer, but you're aware of what structured data looks like.
What Advice Can You Give to Freelance Developers?
I don't freelance, so you'll have to take this with that major caveat.
From what I see of freelancers, more than half their job is client service.
You're doing a heck of a lot of communicating and sitting in meetings with clients. Not to mention time tracking and billing and such. You'll need to love that aspect of the job also to pull it off. You can't just love design and development and thus love freelancing. You'll need to love clients too.
Maybe even a third of the job is the design and development if you consider marketing yourself another third. You can't keep going if you don't keep finding clients.
What Would You Advise Beginners Starting Out in Web Development?
You should definitely find some passion projects so that you can be actively working on building something. All the real learning happens through actual work. Reading a book or watching a course isn't real work - it's supplementary.
Those things are great, but if they aren't paired with really building something you won't digest it like you need to. And you can't really dig into building something if you don't care about it.
Technically, JavaScript is so big these days you'd do well to dig in there. I'd also suggest you have experience with some kind of CMS. Toss in some familiarity with layout, typography, and color.
If You Could Be Remembered For One Thing Only, What Would it Be?
I'd love to be remembered as evidence that you can be moderately successful without being as asshole.
Conclusion by Kyle:
I hope this short Q & A article helped you with your web development journey.
Be sure to check out CSS-Tricks and follow Chris on Twitter here.
