Can 1 Person Really Be Both a Top Coder & Designer?

[DeluxeNames]

Can lighting strike twice?

I've always thought that someone can either be a great coder or a great designer, but not both. I assumed it was wrapped up somehow in their personality. In other words, what they ejoy is what they do better at and that great designers don't like to code and great coders don't like to design.

Is this false? Do you know someone that loves to do both and does both well?

[EhKho]

I love doing both but whether I do either well is really best left to the constructive critism of others lol

[Nuvo]

It's actually very easy to be a good developer.
You just have to follow logical rules and assuming you can learn the language you're using and general application principals, you can be good.
With development, you basically need to remember:
1: Write clean code as it'll make it easier to read and edit in the future.
2: Comment your work so that you remember what something does in 3 years time.
3: Good development should equal less resource hungry, but more stable with no feature loss or feature creep.
4: Make the app accessable as getting the user to learn non-descriptive commands like mkt2h "*this*" or drawn out commands like convert("*This*", textile, html); is a bit of a pain.

Design isn't something anyonce can learn easily as it's sometimes the case that people are naturally tallented artists (I am not one of these people).
If you've got the skills to create designs and you put the effort into learning how to write code, it's entirely possible that you could do both.
On saying that, it might be a case of starting as a developer and finding that you've got some design skills as not all artistry is done with a pen and paper.
I'm much better with a vector editor where I can fine tune things and go back to them than I am with other ways of making graphics, which is why I swear by my vector editors and don't use raster tools.

I suppose it also relies on what the viewer thinks is good design as well.
You might think you've hit on a perfect design, but it might be the case that others find faults with it, and on the other hand, you could make something that you weren't so sure about, and others might love it.

[xPureNLx]

Nice and interesting reply Nuvo, my experienced has almost proved to me that coders aren't designers and visa versa. There are exclusions though =).

[danielneri]

Well I prefer coding over designing any day. I actually started designing and then went into coding. Somehow i found coding far more enjoyable than designing

so after that i never made another template or major graphic thingy ...

[WatchOut]

yeah, if he is active and want to learn of course he can

[Kalina]

I do love both, I love to code more but I do both, I wouldn't say I am an amazing designer but people do like my work. I like my code to be valid and clean. I do it by hand. I hate html editors. I am good at both.

[tony]

you can have the flair for design and learn how to code.

Kinda similar to saying can someone be clever and good at sports, or just generally being good at 2 or more things

[WatchOut]

I do both sometimes, unfortently i'm not good at designing as i am on coding..

[Darren]

I'm a trained coder well I'm trained in somethings and self(ish) taught in others, any good basic computer programming training will allow you to pick apart code in almost any language. At the minute I'm learning PHP by picking things apart.

I'm also a designer, I think artistic talent can be learnt (because I did it) but there has to be some kind of artistic nature there to begin with. You can teach someone to use graphical programs, you can teach someone the ground rules but if that person is extremely colour blind or has no idea on what looks nice together then you may as well let them run off and make hideous things by themselves(it saves on the headaches LOL)

In short, although I can do both, the word "TOP" in the title is the bit that makes all the difference. I do not think that I am anywhere near TOP of either field and as far as I am concerned it would take me a lifetime to be there (disregarding new technoligical advances and languages). As the old saying goes, Jack of all trades Master of none.

[stusangelcaz]

I can code html by hand, if im hard pushed to, but for me, I'd rather design.

[Nitish]

this is possible.........

[lionsgate]

I am a developer and also designer. And I am dong well and the thing you are saying is 100% possible as me myself is a evidence to me.

[Burst effect]

Yes i am :P lol J/K.
Well i am a really talented designer and i'm good at coding IPB skin only, so i guess that counts .

[DeluxeNames]

I am a developer and also designer. And I am dong well and the thing you are saying is 100% possible as me myself is a evidence to me.

I'm impressed Lionsgate! But are you a better coder or a better desinger? And what is your preferecne?