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Is it possible to become 'excellent' at both design and coding?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Is it possible to become 'excellent' at both design and coding?

#11

Post by computerslol »

Yes, it's possible. I don't suggest it.

The upside: you will develop the ability to create things that the communication barrier between excellent developers and excellent designers make very difficult.

The downside: You will have to be an expert in both to keep up with the expert designers and expert developers you will work with later in your career... and every company you work for will try to pigeon-hole you (as design and dev are generally different teams with different management).

Your standard added value to the company will be in your efficiency. You will work at 1.5x the rate of your coworkers (as you will design with development in mind, and develop with design in mind). You will be golden every once in a while when a project comes up that requires novel design AND novel development (you will save the company a ton of man-hours in meetings).

Having both will generally move you to the top of the resume pile when you go job searching, but they will hire you as one or the other (and you have to be sure they will let you do both).

If you don't want to devote your life to it, I suggest you specialize in one.

Re: Is it possible to become 'excellent' at both design and coding?

#12

Post by GregoireSuave »

djloche wrote: post #3

Why not become an expert at both? If you ever decide to have your own startup, being able to do the work yourself vs having to pay something else to do becomes your greatest asset in the initial stages.

Depends on what you're talking about. I can totally see a developer having the front-end design skills necessary to make a site functional yet decent looking, but I'd rather have a full time designer polishing the graphical elements or suggesting changes. The actual graphical design work that goes into most websites is not that high, and trying to do everything yourself is going to lead to stress and misery.

Re: Is it possible to become 'excellent' at both design and coding?

#13

Post by guynamedloren »

TorbjornLunde wrote: post #7

I think there is simply too much stuff to know about in both coding and design. There is simply not enough not time to become really knowledgable in both. However, I am not sure if you really need to be super knowledgeable to benefit from knowing both sides of the fence. I’m sure it’s possible to become really good at a subset of coding and design. By the way: these are just my musings. I’m very early in my career my…

> There is simply not enough not time to become really knowledgable in both.

Please elaborate. Humans live a very long time.

Are you suggesting that design and code evolves so quickly that it is impossible to keep up?

Re: Is it possible to become 'excellent' at both design and coding?

#14

Post by alexkearns »

The beauty of being both a coder and designer is that you can create a product completely on your own. This makes setting up your own start-up a lot simpler.

So, to your question of whether you should focus on one or continue to be generalist, it depends what you want to do with your life. If you want a career working for others, then it might be best to focus on one of the disciplines.

If, on the other hand, you aspire to create your own products, or run your own startup, then I would recommend you continue to work on both your skills.

Indeed, my advice for any developer who wants to do their own start-up is to - once you have reached a good standard - forget honing your development skills and start learning to design.

Learning another programming language or mastering another object orientated design pattern does not bring you any closer to being able create a product yourself. Learning an entirely new but relevant skill like design does.

For your information, I am a journalist who became a developer five years ago, and who very early on in my development career sought to improve my design skills.

I am the guy behind http://www.gambolio.com, http://www.tiki-toki.com and http://www.peopleplotr.com, for which I did all the design and a good chunk of the coding. Also responsible for http://www.casualgirlgamer.com and http://musicgames.co

Re: Is it possible to become 'excellent' at both design and coding?

#15

Post by SeoxyS »

I consider myself both a designer and a developer, and wouldn't have it any other way. One day I will be pushing pixels, the next I will be writing an ad targeting algorithm in Clojure.

Do you think it's impossible to be good both at Graphic Design and playing the piano? No. Why should it be any different with development?

Your mixed skill-set makes you an easily differentiable and incredibly valuable personality. I would hire you in a heartbeat, if you're both great at coding and design.

As for your bonus question, here is some anecdotal evidence: I joined a startup as employee #1 started by a generalist friend (and a non-tech co-founder). For the better part of a year, we were the only two technical people, both generalists. We made some awesome stuff, and now we're making bajillions of dollars and have ~20 employees, 14 months after day one.

Re: Is it possible to become 'excellent' at both design and coding?

#16

Post by TorbjornLunde »

guynamedloren wrote: post #13
TorbjornLunde wrote: post #7

I think there is simply too much stuff to know about in both coding and design. There is simply not enough not time to become really knowledgable in both. However, I am not sure if you really need to be super knowledgeable to benefit from knowing both sides of the fence. I’m sure it’s possible to become really good at a subset of coding and design. By the way: these are just my musings. I’m very early in my career my…

> There is simply not enough not time to become really knowledgable in both. Please elaborate. Humans live a very long time. Are you suggesting that design and code evolves so quickly that it is impossible to keep up?

Upon further reflection I don’t think it’s impossible, but I still think it’s probably very difficult.

Both design and coding are both huge fields. I am not merely talking about becoming a good designer and developer at once, but becoming one with a lot of knowledge in both.

Just take the long lists of things that that relate to each field: Design: interaction design, information architecture, illustration, visual design, interface design, user testing, typography, color theory, composition, accessibility, different design processes, brainstorming techniques, using grid systems, cognitive psychology, sketching Coding: HTML/CSS, various programming languages ranging from low level to highly abstracted, various libraries, understanding of good software architecture, algorithms, maths, understanding how computers work, understanding data structures

There is probably more stuff I forgot to mention. As I wrote in my previous post: I think the key is to choose a subset of both sides.

Re: Is it possible to become 'excellent' at both design and coding?

#17

Post by prateekdayal »

I have done a lot of design/coding work for http://muziboo.com and http://supportbee.com

While it may not be possible for you to be the best designer and programmer for your company, you can learn enough to be able to start from an idea and build a MVP and get some customer traction. At that point, you can start hiring experts. No point hiring experts during the validation phase. As long as you can code and make acceptable (read contemporary) designs, you should be able to validate your ideas and bring in some traction on your own.

Even when I am hiring for my early stage startup, I would prefer people who can do a little bit of both.

Re: Is it possible to become 'excellent' at both design and coding?

#18

Post by trafnar »

I'm in the same boat. I've had many bosses give the same advice. It's bullshit. Bosses like to define you as one or the other. Companies that appreciate your mixed skills will appreciate you greatly and pay you a lot. If you start your own business you'll be in the perfect position.
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