So I play DnD (Dungeons&Dragons, role-playing game). I also do web development. I do neither very well, but I do get inspired in both. Right now I play a cleric half-orc named Mord. He has a blog. But I digress.
The DnD world has two main types of magic. Arcane magic for wizards and sorcerers; divine magic for clerics and druids. The former is obtained through study and hard work. The latter is obtained through devotion and hard work. The arcane magic is based on intelligence or rather the ability to figure things out. The divine magic is based on wisdom or rather the ability to view things in just the right way.
I think programming, meaning javascript programming and server-side programming, is arcane magic. It requires studying symbols and languages. It involves difficult mental trains of thought, but fairly straightforward in their execution. Yes, it takes inspiration to program, but it feels more like it is figuring stuff out. It is a mental journey from a blank slate to a finished product that does its task. Much like casting a fireball.
Design, by which I mean HTML and CSS mechanizations, is divine magic. It requires knowing what the end product should look like. Yes, there is syntax and language to know, but it feels like that is not the obstacle. It is an inspired creation, created on a canvas of the imagination. Much like casting righteous might.
So why I am writing this? Mainly because I find it an amusing idea. But also because it is important to understand the essential differences between programming and design. With programming, one often has a clear endpoint in mind; the hard part is getting there though one can take small little steps. In design, one often has a good grasp of the tools; the hard part is knowing what to do with them and small steps do not work as well. It is hard to make a functioning program; it is easy to implement some design. It is hard to design a great look; it is easy to plan out what a program ought to do.
I am a programmer first, a designer not at all. But I want to be one. How does one do it? For programming, one gets some book on a language and starts writing a program. Eventually it works and one is on the way. There is the paradigm of the language and the idioms of the language to learn and use, but that comes easily enough over time. For design, what does one do? I suppose one needs to look at various designs and find out what works and what does not. And then proceed to sketch out a particular design, choosing positioning, fonts, color schemes, etc. Then one can implement it using tools such as HTML and CSS.
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