Web Design’s Golden Gun
Monday, May 19th, 2008
If you’re one of those people in the industry who can write high quality back-end code as well as the same quality semantic front end markup, tableless layouts in stylesheets and some kick arse JavaScript then you’re what I’d call web design’s golden gun. I’d call you a friggen dodo but there’s at least one woman I know personally who falls into this category and there are a number of high profile bloggers who seem to also fit the bill. Still, how thin can they spread while still having a meaningful relationship and life?
But they are rare birds indeed. The danger of being such a generalist in today’s labour market means that unless you’re willing to forfeit your life in the pursuit of everything about everything you’ll just end up mediocre. Generalists aren’t always mediocre but they’re nearly always going to be – its a question of simple math.
If I were a business looking to hire PHP programmers, for example, I’d be looking at the quality of the (X)HTML that they’re able to provide. My web application stands or falls on the quality of its foundation.
Have you noticed that anyone who is actually a golden gun doesn’t seem to be in the available labour pool? Of course they’re employed. But there are long queues of generalists who just weren’t good enough at everything to stand out from the crowd. For most of us being a specialist about something is what makes us worth the money.
