Development vs Design

I am primarily a web developer with design skills and sensibilities. I believe form follows function. It doesn’t matter how pretty it is, if it doesn’t work or no one can find you with a search engine it just doesn’t matter. That being said: design is usually only noticeable if it is very bad or very good.

The approach I take: your website is your digital identity. Images, colors, content, shopping carts, widgets, even advertising on your site is all in the service of branding your product and/or company. Your website is you, in a digital format.

I am sometimes asked, what is difference between design and development is not always clear. Some folks use them interchangeably. The straightforward answer is, well, straight forward: design is the look of a website, development is the functionality of the website.
Design is known as “front end”; development and programming is the “back end.”

Where does that leave programming? Programming involves creating scripts written in various codes. The most common codes in the web development world are Java, PHP, Perl and Ruby. Snippets of scripts are stored in libraries known as API’s. Commonly use code or applications can be accessed saving time and money. It is critical to have a developer/programmer knowledgeable in API’s. It will save much time, money and debugging.

Development does not usually involve writing server side code, that’s specifically programming. Developers write in HTML, XHTML, CSS, Javascript all together they are called Dynamic Hypertext Markup Language DHTML. I do some development in PHP and Java.

I work with Content Management Systems (CMS) most commonly WordPress, Drupal and Joomla. I hand code in XHTML and in some HTML 5. I design using CSS3. The back end CMS work is all done using PHP5 with MYSQL databases, JavaScript and API’s, including jQuery.

I agree with WordPress, “Code is Poetry.” The sites I design, are business and creative entities. I love what I do, so I do it well. Anyone in this field that claims expertise or is unwilling to learn is quickly obsolete. Humility and curiosity are the essential traits for any designer/developer/programmer.

Happily share with me your stories web, business and otherwise. I read comments and respond.