It's really simple, no long answer or discussion is required - think of what prevents you to excel at both. Nothing.
Is it possible to become 'excellent' at both design and coding?
61–70 of 94 posts
Re: Is it possible to become 'excellent' at both design and coding?
#62The 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 asp…
Hi Alex, I am really impressed by your design skills. And having spent more than 5 years learning programming and doing programming, I agree with your point that learning designs brings an extra dimension to my work that another language will not.
Any advice for the design skills impaired developer like myself?
Re: Is it possible to become 'excellent' at both design and coding?
#63I hate to be the one to tell this to you but what your ex boss probably tried to tell you is that you are not the kind of guy who can be excellent at both. He didn't meant that nobody could, if he has two cents of common sense. Whether he is right or not is for you, and time, to decide.
Re: Is it possible to become 'excellent' at both design and coding?
#64Unfortunately, there will always be a multi-classing penalty of sort. (I'm one of those people who code and design for web development, but masters neither.) For design, I've learned that the essential trait is to set one's mindset and philosophy on problem solving (as well as have an intrinsic taste for art). For code, I believe it is quite similar. Except that standards and practices constantly change. As a designe…
Multi-classing penalty, of course, applies. BUT there are classes that are multi-skillful by itself. And you can be excellent in those, even if they fall behind in any particular skill behind the more focused ones. That being said, I've always played rogue or bard. :{-
Hehe, I suppose that someone who's mastered the art of design is called a White(space) Knight. And someone who's mastered programming is called an Internet Sorcerer.
Re: Is it possible to become 'excellent' at both design and coding?
#65I think you need to know enough of both to be excellent at one or the other. Design freedom and constraints in software come from what code allows. Code structure is all about the interaction design (and somewhat about visual design as well).
That said, if you want to do both you'll inevitably work on smaller projects, you won't have the time to do more and get to market in reasonable time. You'll also refine each skill at half speed — 10.000 hours each to become expert.
Re: Is it possible to become 'excellent' at both design and coding?
#66Do not EVER EVER give up your skill set. You can rule the world if you can code AND design. Quite your job. Be your own boss. Find one client that can meet your expenses and the sell like crazy to rest of the world.
If I was half as good at coding and competent at design I'd be making 3x more per year than I am and the start ups I've tried of the years would have had a fighting chance. If you're stuff looks like crap no one will give it a chance.
Re: Is it possible to become 'excellent' at both design and coding?
#67It comes down to task bandwidth and specialists are often dead weight and bottlenecks except when they're not, but that's not often. Stay diverse. Stay dangerous.
Re: Is it possible to become 'excellent' at both design and coding?
#68Have I got a great advice for you: Go to under-developed countries! Those are filled with great designers/developed that have learned and mastered both crafts in order to hire less personnel and deliver quality service at a low-cost.
Coming from Latin America, I did so myself, know about many people that have done it and we constantly shuffle between tasks. This is really quite common in our region.
Re: Is it possible to become 'excellent' at both design and coding?
#69It's really simple, no long answer or discussion is required - think of what prevents you to excel at both. Nothing.
Time and resources. If you have these, then no external issues should prevent you from excelling at both.
Re: Is it possible to become 'excellent' at both design and coding?
#70Just continue with passion whatever you want to do