On Thursday 13 November 2003 3:31 am, Andy Sy wrote: > We should be aware and acknowledge that knowing how to do voodoo coding is > a different skill from engineering good interfaces. In other words, > one can be a master in the black arts of deep hacking, but be a total > klutz at designing usable interfaces (not necessarily GUI) to their > programs (and thus should try to devote some more time towards learning > this aspect of software design).
You're right. Designing excellent user-interfaces and creating structured code are two different, independent skills. In my previous workplace, I am amazed with my programming partner's ability to prune extraneous code and simplify, but he was clueless with regards to designing user-interfaces. I loved creating/improving his interface, but I don't have his coding ability, and I am deficient with regards to creating efficient algorithms. My knack for user-interface explains why I prefer coding in 4GL, simply because a 4GL language is more usable than cryptic hex codes or Perl expression strings. These two skills are independent but complementary. Open-source development methodologies have been more efficient in combining these two programming skills, on the basis that it allows more developers with different talents to cooperate. optimus -- Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Official Website: http://plug.linux.org.ph Searchable Archives: http://marc.free.net.ph . To leave, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/plug . Are you a Linux newbie? To join the newbie list, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/ph-linux-newbie
