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I want to know your opinion. Do programmers (like me) need to know about design? For example drawing, web design, image manipulation etc.


Actually, I like web, enterprise and mobile programming.

Thanks :D

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May I suggest you flesh this question out a little bit? You might want to be more specific about what type pf programmer you are talking about. –  DKnight Aug 10 '11 at 17:31
Design knowledge is appreciated, not required. Good taste is enough for me. –  Marcelo Aug 10 '11 at 17:42
Will it add clarity if you change the title to 'Do programmers need to know about graphic designing?' else it can be confused with design principles at firs glance –  Kiran Ravindranathan Aug 10 '11 at 17:52
You still have a poor question. You need to just ask what you want to know. Not try to get the answer you want. –  Chad Aug 10 '11 at 18:12
Hi Eko Kurniawan Khannedy, like the other commenters mentioned, you need to add what problem you're actually trying to solve by asking this question. Open-ended questions make getting useful answers for you and others especially difficult. –  user8 Aug 10 '11 at 18:18
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closed as not constructive by Mark Trapp Aug 10 '11 at 18:17


3 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

What do programmers like you do? If you work on the guts of an accounting system, probably no. If you're a one-man shop writing mobile applications, it'd definitely help.

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Yes and no. It depends what you are doing. If all you do is poke data around, then probably no, but if you are developing commercial web sites, web or desktop applications then it helps considerably.

However, a basic knowledge is useful to help you with solving user-centric problems and building abstractions of processes in your mind.

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In short - they need to know enough about design principles to not produce crap.
Jeff had a good article on the subject.

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please note that the the question is not about design principles but of graphic design. –  Kiran Ravindranathan Aug 10 '11 at 17:52
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