“Dang it, Jim! I’m a programmer, not a web designer! I can make it come alive, but it won’t be pretty…”
No bones about it. I’ve worked mostly “solo” in IT. It’s partly because most of my years have been spent teaching people how to program. And though a career as a programming instructor is spent re-hashing the fundamentals, I have tried to keep up with the “architecture” and “engineering” aspects of software development.
TBH, my hands-on in “real-world” areas of our IT industry have been mostly in the hobby format. Still, I grok as much as I can, and I get to do the occassional outside contract to keep my feet wet.
It’s hard to touch computer programming without brushing up with (or falling into) the challenges and pitfalls of visual design.
Of the three Pillars of Software - Content | Functionality | Presentation - I’m pretty good at Functionality. I also write decent Content (and I can hack screenshots for visuals). But Presentation…? That’s where my skills devolve into monkey-patching (at best).
However, things are improving for me in this regard!
Thanks in large part to frameworks like Astro, Starlight and Tailwind, I’m starting to make sites I am proud to show off. And I’m so happy for Refactoring UI - a style guide for developers! These have allowed me to make decent(-enough) looking sites and applications.
Who knows? Maybe I’ll improve enough to open-source some of the half-baked ad-hoc tools/apps I have laying around.