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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. S

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.gambolio.com, http://www.tiki-toki.com http://www.tiki-toki.com and http://www.peopleplotr.com 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 http://www.casualgirlgamer.com and http://musicgames.co http://musicgames.co

cageface 14y ago
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. I don't aspire to ever be a really good designer, but I'm doing exactly this right now. It's become clear to me over the last year that improving the design of my apps is going to do more to boost sales than any new features I might add.
keisimone 14y ago
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?

cageface 14y ago

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. I don't aspire to ever be a really good designer, but I'm doing exactly this right now. It's become clear to me over the last year that improving the design of my apps is going to do more to boost sales than any new features I might add.

keisimone 14y ago

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?