Interview With Jonathan Snook

Jonathan: I’m a designer/developer who currently works for Yahoo! as a front-end engineer after having spent almost four years as a freelancer.

Jonathan: Everybody has a different learning style and the style that I’ve found that works best for me is to dive in and just do something. I get an idea for a project and then work towards completing that project. Along the way, I learn what works and what doesn’t. I bring that knowledge forward onto the next project. Some people need a teacher or mentor to create a learning path for them to be effective. Other people need books. Students weighing the pros and cons need to be honest with themselves about how they can best learn what they need to.

There are, however, other benefits of formal education. It can establish a social network that can help you in getting a job and maintaining your career in the long term. Likewise, many schools offer up internships and placement programs that can make it easier to hit the ground running once schooling is complete.

Jonathan: Learning comes from my learning style. I learn by doing. I continually learn by having personal projects that interest me and that I can work towards completing. If I started running out of ideas then I’d be worried that I’d stop learning. Thankfully that hasn’t happened yet!

Jonathan: Blogging has had a huge impact on my career. It helped support me as a freelancer and was instrumental when getting the job at Yahoo!. It’s like one long resume and people appreciate that. While I don’t always have time to maintain the blog, I absolutely believe that it is a worthwhile project. I believe that it will continue to support my career in the future.

Jonathan: I have most definitely been using both HTML5 and CSS3 in my work. With HTML5, I haven’t been using any of the new tags but do prefer the simplified syntax such as the smaller doctype and not having to specify media type on SCRIPT, LINK and STYLE elements. I’ve also been using the custom data attributes on various projects. Basically, anything that I know that will continue to work across all browsers without any hacks.

As for CSS3, I have been using various techniques depending on the project. I really enjoy taking advantage of rgba, multiple backgrounds, CSS gradients, border-image along with a few other tricks here and there. I’m not sure I could narrow it down to a particular favourite because I enjoy all of them! I just look forward to more wide-spread implementations.

Jonathan: The trick is to get your name out and there’s any number of ways to do that. Traditionally, there has been marketing and advertising but in the web community, it has less value. What holds the most value is the act of creation. Put something out that people can use and they’ll remember that. Blogging is a part of that but it’s not the only avenue. Make a web application, make fonts, make Photoshop brushes, make whatever you want and make it available to the world. Creation is the new currency.