I'm a web and graphic designer, whose learning to become a developer. I was wondering how many like minded individuals are out there reading HN w/ me every day?
Oscar Wilde wrote: "To define is to limit". I really love that quote and I absolutely agree. I think defining yourself as a 'designer' or 'developer' is a terrible thing to do. A lot of people here are experts at multiple skills, and it is not their skills that define them. What then, does? The fruits of their labor. The things that they create is what "defines" who they are, not the skills they mastered and not some specialization label stuck on them to tell others what it is they do. Learning new skills is absolutely the best thing you can do as it will open up more and more opportunities, but don't rush into thinking that these skills are what matters -- the application of them is what does. Gain the skills you need to make something happen, and let your creations define who you are.
I am a full-time Creative Director who likes to tinker with writing web apps, mostly front-end development. I leave most of the heavy lifting to the real hackers.
I have done some web design, development and now business. I still regard myself as more a designer than developer.<p>It's still useful and fun to create mockups to show product team what I mean, and sometimes design something for myself.
'HN Designers': would not be nice to have a HN clone just about web design? UI is in the same way important as backend code and infrastructure we talk about mostly here