Rafferty Pendery Interview - The Guys Who Put the Bells and Whistles There

In my third meeting with Rafferty Pendery, founder and CEO of Studio98, we touched on the technology that underlies most web sites.

Q: “Mr. Pendery, I’ve heard the term web developer tossed around a lot. What exactly does a web developer develop?”

A: “Mr. Pendery replied, “I like to think of the web developer as the guy that puts the bells and whistles on a web site. He’s the person working behind the scene putting the systems in place that allow us to push a button and get our bank balance or transfer money.”

“Web developers work primarily with systems. An example of a system would be the shopping cart you use on various web sites to select, pay and arrange delivery of the items you want to purchase. The web developer is the one who puts in place the system that allows you to make your purchases. An information system is a system, automated or manual, that comprises people, machines, and/or methods organized to collect, process, transmit, and disseminate data that represent user information.”

“Pushing a button at the auto teller window begins a series of actions, all unseen by us, that results in our balance popping up on the screen. The developer does the programming that sends the computer looking for the balance data and then sorting and organizing the data found and pulling out the specific piece of data requested and having it appear on the screen in an understandable way.”

Q: “What tools do these web wizards utilize to create their magic?”

A: “The developer is conversant in the actual programming language that commands our computers, websites, systems, etc. The rest of us use software programs that are user friendly and use people languages. These programs act as buffers for us. We talk to them in English or Spanish etc. and then the program translates our commands into any of the programming languages and passes that on to the computer. The developers don’t need this buffer.”

“The commands that direct our computing machines are referred to as “code”. A specific style of code grouped together is called a “language”. If you or I were to look over the developer’s shoulder at the instructions he was typing into the computer it would be as understandable as one Wind Talker passing along vital government secrets to another.”

Q: “How does a web developer differ from a web designer?”

A: “Some web designers are also developers. For a smaller project our designers at Studio98 can do the entire project themselves. But for a more complicated site that requires a lot of data manipulation the designer is happy to bring in a developer for this part of the project. Some developers are also good designers. But it’s been my experience that the developers would prefer to leave the artsy stuff to the designer to create.”

Q: “What else do developers do besides putting systems in place?”

A: “Besides putting systems in place for a web site, the developer’s actions could also include determining, to a great extent, how search engine friendly a web site is going to be. A savvy developer who does his homework and keeps up with evolving technology will make sure the sites he develops invite web crawlers (search engine robots) and makes it easy for them to analyze and index information about a website. At Studio98 when we build our websites, we create them to be search engine friendly.”

Once again, Mr. Pendery, you’ve made a complicated subject easily understandable. Thank you for your time.