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Developer vs Designer

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011

This is kind of a repost from July 2010, with a couple of changes. See if you can spot them ;)

Recently in my professional career, I have shifted from being a Web Designer Developer to a Web Developer Designer. I love all aspects of building a website- planning, designing and developing, but I have essentially just "planted my flag" in the development camp. For those who are not versed in what Designers and Developers do:

Designers:

Designers make the site look aesthetically nice as well as develop a naturalistic "flow" for navigation and how you move about the site. This involves some coding skills in HTML, CSS, Flash and some Javascript. Web Designers generally come from a training background in design and live in the application pool of Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks and Dreamweaver.

Developers:

Developers write the code that makes everything work as it was intended. At times, developers will dip into design with the layout of a form as well as coding the CSS and Javascript. Mostly though, they deal with programing the server-side application in one of many various languages including PHP, asp.NET, Coldfusion, Java, etc...

Eyes glazed over yet? Don't worry, that's as tech-speek as I'll get ;)

It's interesting that both camps look down on each other at some level. Both talented, creative and technical whizzes, each think the other as buffoons.

How Designers see Developers:

Elitist snobby nerds with no style. Coding in their mom's basement til the wee hours in the dark, they alternate between online gaming and writing code that only they can fathom. They dare to actually "design" a page, because they know what a header, body and footer is. They also think there are only 2 fonts in the world- "default" and "Arial."

How Developers see Designers:

Elitist snobby, Starbucks-drinking hipsters. They have rock-star delusions that they're recreating the web with every-freak'n site they build, when it's just another WordPress-looking hack. They dare to pretend they know code because they can hack some html and CSS and tack "developer" on the end of their title because they know how to echo "Hello World" with PHP. BALLS!

The fact is- both camps are right and neither are as good as they think they are ;) After living in the two camps, I've found complete respect for both. They're filled with incredibly talented people that know a great deal about their process. Sure, each could build a decent site without the other, but not a truly exceptional site!

Both need each other!

Posted in Geek Culture, Geek Technology, Geek Work | No Comments »

The Weather is SunnyWetSnow With a Chance of moderately a Warm Cold Front

Wednesday, October 19th, 2011

Has anyone else noticed how progressively "off" the weather services' predictions have been over the past few years? Is it me? I seem to remember a time when the forecast said it was going to rain, and it rained. I would chalk it up to global warming, but as we all know that's a politically-backed lie the scientists of the world have concocted to enslave us all ;) So if it isn't global warming, then what?

I propose a few theories:

  1. Popularity of the "TV weatherman" has wained and all of the forecasters with fabulous hair are not choosing that career-path anymore. As we all know, fabulous hair and rain do not mix, hence a more accurate forecast.
  2. Universities' meteorological departments are having a brain drain and losing their competent faculty to the astronomy departments, where the actually study meteors.
  3. More and more, the computers that run the models are getting smarter- now we know where "Skynet" really got it's name.
  4. God is just having too much fun with the forecasters. "It's looking like rain...looking like rain...looking like rain...ok, it's going to rain! Ohhh!"
During one of the hottest days of the summer, my coworker pointed out that the forecast called for a 10% chance of snow. Well... I suppose there is always that chance.

Anyone else have any theories?

Posted in Geek Technology, Life Commentary | No Comments »

So Long and Thanks for All of the Fish

Thursday, October 6th, 2011

If it were not for Steve's drive, determination and vision I would not be where I am today. It was the Mac that gave access to computers for the visual thinkers. No command line, no cryptic computer shorthand. The Mac embodied WYSIWYG!

Without Steve there would be no Mac, iPod, iPhone and Pixar. He gave us flashy presentations and made us anticipate product launches with religious zeal, dominating headlines regularly.

He was the best showman, visionary and ringmaster. Now the center ring is dark, the microphone is silent.

We'll miss you Steve

 

Posted in Geek Culture, Geek Technology | No Comments »

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