[Sigia-l] Programming IAs was: Little things an IA MUST know/do

[Todd R.Warfel]

Good point, Dan.

I for one adamantly believe that IDs/IAs should NOT know how to 
program, but should know enough about the language and platform that 
they can speak "geek" when necessary.

I would agree that not knowing enough about the platform can get you 
into trouble when one of the SWEs is giving you some technical reason 
as to why they "can't" do something. By knowing enough about the 
environment (technology, platform, scripting/programming language), 
you're able to fend off such arguments and negotiate what can be done.

As for having to know how to program in that specific environment - I 
simply don't agree. I'm a firm believer that your in one camp or the 
other - good designers make bad programers and good programmers make 
bad designers. There are exceptions, but they're extremely rare.

On Thursday, April 24, 2003, at 11:37 AM, Dan Saffer wrote:

> Chris Crawford, in The Art of Interactive Design, is decidedly in the
> other camp, however, and is adamant in his belief that IDs/IAs should
> know how to program. To whit...
>
> We've talked a lot about gaining business acumen here, but what about
> technical acumen? Thoughts?

Cheers!

Todd R. Warfel

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