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The idea that you have to be a "native person" or a "web person" is ridiculous. Let's just use the tools that make the most sense for the project at hand.

mmahemoff 13y ago
The idea that you have to be a "law person" or a "medicine person" is ridiculous. Let's just use the tools that make the most sense for the project at hand.
- rimantas 13y ago
  Uhm what? If you are law person you deal with law, if you are medicine person you deal with diseases. How does this apply to the situation where you deal with apps, only done using different tools?
  - mmahemoff 13y ago
    It's all specialisation and one human mind can only do so many things. The web side alone is vast now. It's a common conversation in the web community about how a new developer is supposed to pick everything up. I agree if you're a company, you can't afford to turn your nose at one or the other. But there's few unicorns who can build excellent apps in all of web, Android, and iOS. And despite a lot of software mythology, I don't believe most programmers can just learn a platform in a few days, not to be seriously capable at it.
    - randomdata 13y ago
      I actually thought you were being serious in your previous post. Humans cannot specialize in everything, but we can do a lot more than just one thing.
      - wallflower 13y ago
        In my experience, people who claim to do both iOS and Android development well vastly overestimate their abilities. At the highest levels, writing an iOS or Android app is like being a game developer and pushing the platform to its limits (in a non-hacky way). To attack the problem of smooth scrolling, ~60fps on a list (especially one doing async fetches and/or database and/or complex cell layouts) requires different experience and knowledge on each platform. To build a beautiful app (not an average app) on either platform, requires almost a craftsman-level touch and level of care. To attack the problem of data synchronization... don't go there (just use Parse)
- Zigurd 13y ago
  That sounds good, but it glosses over the differences in languages, idioms, toolchain, development methodology, testing methodology, etc. While you need your designers to understand both well enough to create a common design, you are going to find very few coders who are true experts at both Web and native architecture and implementation. While you can cross train people, you need experts in both.
- gfodor 13y ago
  Where do you draw the line for what domains we should expect software engineers to be able to move between, then?
  - mmahemoff 13y ago
    It really depends. A big company can afford to have specialised Android devs etc, while a startup might want to shift "the mobile developer" between OSs and maybe the web too. Another way to look at this question is to ask under what circumstances would you expect a developer on X platform to shift to Y platform. IMO it takes 2-3 months at least for a good developer to become professional-level in another language. And in an app context, it's not just a language, but a large set of libraries and frameworks. So you can assume a 4-6-month ramp-up in skills, with relatively low productivity, and then work backwards to decide if the investment is worthwhile. If the developer has sufficient domain and institutional knowledge, and is likely to stick around, it might be.

mmahemoff 13y ago

The idea that you have to be a "law person" or a "medicine person" is ridiculous. Let's just use the tools that make the most sense for the project at hand.

rimantas 13y ago
Uhm what? If you are law person you deal with law, if you are medicine person you deal with diseases. How does this apply to the situation where you deal with apps, only done using different tools?
- mmahemoff 13y ago
  It's all specialisation and one human mind can only do so many things. The web side alone is vast now. It's a common conversation in the web community about how a new developer is supposed to pick everything up. I agree if you're a company, you can't afford to turn your nose at one or the other. But there's few unicorns who can build excellent apps in all of web, Android, and iOS. And despite a lot of software mythology, I don't believe most programmers can just learn a platform in a few days, not to be seriously capable at it.
  - randomdata 13y ago
    I actually thought you were being serious in your previous post. Humans cannot specialize in everything, but we can do a lot more than just one thing.
    - wallflower 13y ago
      In my experience, people who claim to do both iOS and Android development well vastly overestimate their abilities. At the highest levels, writing an iOS or Android app is like being a game developer and pushing the platform to its limits (in a non-hacky way). To attack the problem of smooth scrolling, ~60fps on a list (especially one doing async fetches and/or database and/or complex cell layouts) requires different experience and knowledge on each platform. To build a beautiful app (not an average app) on either platform, requires almost a craftsman-level touch and level of care. To attack the problem of data synchronization... don't go there (just use Parse)
Zigurd 13y ago
That sounds good, but it glosses over the differences in languages, idioms, toolchain, development methodology, testing methodology, etc. While you need your designers to understand both well enough to create a common design, you are going to find very few coders who are true experts at both Web and native architecture and implementation. While you can cross train people, you need experts in both.
gfodor 13y ago
Where do you draw the line for what domains we should expect software engineers to be able to move between, then?
- mmahemoff 13y ago
  It really depends. A big company can afford to have specialised Android devs etc, while a startup might want to shift "the mobile developer" between OSs and maybe the web too. Another way to look at this question is to ask under what circumstances would you expect a developer on X platform to shift to Y platform. IMO it takes 2-3 months at least for a good developer to become professional-level in another language. And in an app context, it's not just a language, but a large set of libraries and frameworks. So you can assume a 4-6-month ramp-up in skills, with relatively low productivity, and then work backwards to decide if the investment is worthwhile. If the developer has sufficient domain and institutional knowledge, and is likely to stick around, it might be.