It's Inevitable: Designers Will Rule the Web
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It's Inevitable: Designers Will Rule the Web
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Re: It's Inevitable: Designers Will Rule the Web
#2"If the web is to reach its full potential, we have to empower many more people, with fewer technical boundaries. The needs and capabilities of the internet will grow faster than society can train up new computer programmers, so we have no choice but to transcend past programming to interact with this beautiful new medium."
I couldn't make my job go away if I wanted it to. You don't just say, oh, this problem is too hard, so we're going to transcend it.
I wanted to do frontend/design-ish work the last two job searches. What did I do instead? Well, I managed to actually get some in on 20% projects, and spent the remainder on image processing, field algebras, and... lots of stuff in between. Like administering an Oracle DB, hacking postgres plugins, munging data with clojure and python, fighting with SBT and the scala type system. Before you can start playing with design, you have to write the code to make it happen. And before you can even do that, you have to get the customers' data out of their database, munge it, get it replicated across your own datacenters, etc.
Re: It's Inevitable: Designers Will Rule the Web
#3"If the web is to reach its full potential, we have to empower many more people, with fewer technical boundaries. The needs and capabilities of the internet will grow faster than society can train up new computer programmers, so we have no choice but to transcend past programming to interact with this beautiful new medium." I couldn't make my job go away if I wanted it to. You don't just say, oh, this problem is too…
I'm not arguing that we should get rid of code altogether, that is an impossible task. I'm saying that we shouldn't require code for things that can be automated, and there sure are tons of parts of web development that can be.
Re: It's Inevitable: Designers Will Rule the Web
#4"If the web is to reach its full potential, we have to empower many more people, with fewer technical boundaries. The needs and capabilities of the internet will grow faster than society can train up new computer programmers, so we have no choice but to transcend past programming to interact with this beautiful new medium." I couldn't make my job go away if I wanted it to. You don't just say, oh, this problem is too…
I'm not arguing that we should get rid of code altogether, that is an impossible task. I'm saying that we shouldn't require code for things that can be automated, and there sure are tons of parts of web development that can be.
The truth is that programmers have been trying to automate themselves since the beginning of the trade. Garbage collection, higher order functions, automated deployment tools, wordpress, they are all related. We are lazy, we don't like doing meaningless repetitive stuff that somehow nonetheless requires programming experience. As far as I can tell, lowering the cost of implementing software hasn't put a dent in the demand for programmers.
Re: It's Inevitable: Designers Will Rule the Web
#5If this comes to be remotely true, it would only drive the salaries for web developers even lower.
Re: It's Inevitable: Designers Will Rule the Web
#6OT: When I scroll down on that page in the latest Safari the title scrolls over the text [1]
[1] https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/600458/Screen%20Shot%202...
Re: It's Inevitable: Designers Will Rule the Web
#7If this comes to be remotely true, it would only drive the salaries for web developers even lower.
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Re: It's Inevitable: Designers Will Rule the Web
#8"If the web is to reach its full potential, we have to empower many more people, with fewer technical boundaries. The needs and capabilities of the internet will grow faster than society can train up new computer programmers, so we have no choice but to transcend past programming to interact with this beautiful new medium." I couldn't make my job go away if I wanted it to. You don't just say, oh, this problem is too…
I'm not arguing that we should get rid of code altogether, that is an impossible task. I'm saying that we shouldn't require code for things that can be automated, and there sure are tons of parts of web development that can be.
Don't widgets, controls, etc. do just that? As you mention they are just parts and to create complex applications you still have to consider business logic, data access, third party API integration(if needed), interaction logic, navigation logic, etc. You are looking at this strictly from a web designer's point of view, which is understandable since you are one, however creating applications is much more complex and we've automated the parts of web development that could be automated. Sure you can come up with more widgets and controls but the framework is already defined.
Re: It's Inevitable: Designers Will Rule the Web
#9> Design is a universal language. It transcends borders, races, and spoken languages. It is constantly changing and adapting to new ideas, new platforms, and new environments. It’s inherently more human than programming - most of us can tell good design from bad, while a only a tiny percentage can identify good code. Design is the interface between the problems we face, and the solutions we create to overcome them.
Oh jeezus...I consider myself more a humanist than a tech evangelist, but this makes me throw up in my mouth. Design is vital, don't get me wrong, but the problems and tensions we have with design often come from abstract/vague specs and opinions...Placing value on "code" doesn't necessarily mean "Programmers-first"...but in order for a sane eco-system with relatively stable specs, programmers and engineers cannot take a back seat to the design process.
Re: It's Inevitable: Designers Will Rule the Web
#10> "Unlike many technical disciplines, design is impossible to automate"
I disagree. You have design-as-a-service with things like 99designs.com, you have great templates with WordPress, you have Bootstrap and other CSS frameworks that get you 90% of the way there (works on different form factors automagically, lots of flexibility), you have style guides for native iOS and Android apps...
You don't "automate" design, you share it based on principles that just about everyone likes. Your design doesn't need to be unique, but your idea and purpose do.
Design seems a lot easier to get 90% of the way there than get code to a point where programmers are less needed.