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Why Tony Stark is better than you

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Re: Why Tony Stark is better than you

#4

Post by chime »

I sorta fancy myself as a do-it-all. I do the design, write the backend, sell it to the client, do the testing, receive the feedback etc. I think it comes from the fact that I've been doing all of this for almost two decades now. I have spent three times more time fiddling in Paint Shop Pro than professional graphic artists in Photoshop. I may not be able to make designs as pretty as 280North but that doesn't stop me from giving it my best.

I've also spent more time and energy configuring Apache and various *nix apps than most sysadmins. But I don't feel comfortable blogging about "Top 5 Unix commands you must know" because I always feel there are 100 others who know more than me so I'll let them blog on these topics. I'll blog about what I'm good at or my own experiences. Which brings me back to the do-it-all topic - if it needs to be done, I want to learn how to do it and do it well. I delegate and outsource when I have resources available but if not, I just do whatever needs to be done. Heinlein's quote seems pretty appropriate here:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

Re: Why Tony Stark is better than you

#6

Post by mey »

chime wrote: post #4

I sorta fancy myself as a do-it-all. I do the design, write the backend, sell it to the client, do the testing, receive the feedback etc. I think it comes from the fact that I've been doing all of this for almost two decades now. I have spent three times more time fiddling in Paint Shop Pro than professional graphic artists in Photoshop. I may not be able to make designs as pretty as 280North but that doesn't stop me…

That is an excellent quote, although it's given me a few more things to strive for in my life. (butcher a hog, set a bone, write a sonnet, die gallantly)

Re: Why Tony Stark is better than you

#7

Post by thomaspaine »

I wish I was better at design. On the other hand there's this wonderful principle called division of labor, and while I might spend 10 hours designing a mediocre website, a good designer will design a great one in half the time. This has actually happened to me. After spending a weekend building out some pages that I thought looked pretty good, my designer friend sent me a photoshop mockup that made me decide to totally scrap what I had made, and go with her design instead.

The most productive I've ever been has been while working in tandem with a good designer, because it frees me up to do what I do best, and that's write code.

Now, I will say that it's important for any web developer to understand principles of design, because understanding what your users actually want is crucial for both backend and frontend work, thinking about user interaction, your data model, etc.

Re: Why Tony Stark is better than you

#10

Post by megablast »

harisenbon wrote: post #5
donaq wrote: post #3

Ironically, your 3-column blog design is not very friendly, IMO. I had to scroll up and down to read that post.

When I got to the scroll up part of the post, I stopped reading... Looks very nice at a glance, but fails its usability tests. ;)

Clearly one of those people who have every window maximised to take up the whole screen. Like people who wear white sneakers, do not trust them.
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