Vitaliy wrote:

>>> Gerhard, I must disagree. I've worked with graphic designers and web
>>> developers, and these are two very different positions.
>>
>> Right... just like firmware programmer and hardware designer -- yet this
>> list is full of people who do both :)
> 
> What you did is worse than comparing apples to oranges (at least both are 
> fruit). :)

No. I've worked in both areas, and what I wrote about is quite directly
comparable. Many, many independent web site designers do it all:
(simple) graphics design, (simple) web site design, (simple) web site
programming, (simple) host sys admin. I've also worked on sites where a
team with 50+ people worked, and it was all separated.

This is directly comparable to the situation of many independent
firmware and hardware designers. Many of the independents do it all:
from (simple) PC software, through (simple) embedded software, to
(simple) firmware, (simple) hardware design and (simple) production. But
there are also many situations where each of these areas have their own
departments with specialists. Heck, board layout is a specialist area
when you get to gigahertz motherboards.

When I write "simple", that's not in any way demeaning; it means "can be
done by one person". That's just the way it is... when a higher degree
of specialization is required for each of the areas, you need more
people, and each of these get to work on a more restricted part of the
whole.

So when a small company wants a small device developed, they don't hire
a technical writer for the documentation (specs and user), an
electronics engineer (for the development of the circuit), a specialized
layout engineer (for the board layout), a firmware engineer (for the
embedded firmware), a software developer (for the PC interface) and a
production engineer (for the production work). They hire one independent
who does it all. Similarly when it's not an independent for one device,
but one employed engineer for small-scale development and production.

Same thing when a small company has web site needs. That's not
profoundly different. And the spread of specialities is not any wider
here, nor is the market place any different. 

> On the other hand, hardware engineers and embedded programmers have a
> similar mindset. 

You can quite easily tell whether a hardware engineer is an experienced
programmer or "just" programs. The approach to programming is different;
this comes with the experience. The same goes of course for the other
way 'round; it's just as easy to tell whether an embedded programmer is
an experienced hardware engineer or "just" develops some IO circuits.
The fact that many engineers working with embedded systems do a
reasonable amount of both doesn't change the fact that they are two
quite distinct areas, with lots of people who only work on one side of
the fence. 

> Sometimes you can't tell the difference between hardware design, and
> programming. When you work with FPGAs, are you programming, or
> building hardware?

You're developing FPGAs; this is different from both traditional
programming and traditional hardware design. There are specialists for
this, too, if you want (or need) one; often people who don't have
considerable experience developing analog circuitry or developing
traditional programs.

All the same goes for web page design. While the design graphics seems
to be quite distinct from the functionality of the page, it is not. When
designing the visual elements, a good design makes sure that they fit
together with the envisioned functionality. The visual design for the
same page is different for a traditional frame-based designs (where only
parts of the page are reloaded) or for a design that always reloads the
whole page, it's different for a design that works with overlay frames
for page elements, for a design that relies heavily on client-side
processing (AJAX), etc. This interrelationship is not much different
from the connection between hardware and firmware in embedded designs.
Sometimes it's more intertwined (like small PIC-based designs),
sometimes it's less (like a large embedded system that uses a common
real-time OS that runs on slightly customized standard PC compatible
hardware). 

>> IMO the exact same goes for graphic designers that do web page
>> layout. If they don't want to have to deal with HTML, JavaScript and
>> the like, they need to look for jobs that are big enough that they
>> warrant a programmer just for this; maybe he should team up with
>> one?
> 
> Notice that the OP did not mention HTML, and I said that for a
> designer, "knowing HTML is helpful". Because HTML is not a
> programming language. :)

Notice that I wrote "HTML, JavaScript and the like". Your comment about
HTML notwithstanding, the "JavaScript and the like" part still stands.
HTML all by itself isn't worth a hoot today, only for very very small
sites. In pretty much every site, HTML works together with at least
JavaScript on the client side, and in a majority of professional sites
it is generated by a server-side programming language (PHP, ASP, Java,
whatever). The visual design of a page is quite dependent on what can be
done dynamically, so what can be done (and approximately how much effort
it is to do it) needs to be known to create the visual design.

Gerhard
-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist