First, name one other thing in the world, he said, that is used by so many people and which is created entirely by hand? Stuff that is made by hand is hard to make, and even more hard to make well, and tends to be less sturdy than things made by machines.

I hadn’t thought of this either – how all code in the software we build is handcrafted. Read the post, its arguments are true and insightful.

If you’re doing the right amount of testing, there should be a good chance, whenever you kick off a test run, that your actions for the next hour will change depending on the results of the run. If you typically don’t change your actions based on the information from the tests, then the effort spent to write tests gathering that information was wasted.

David Heinemeier Hansson writes about sane amounts of software tests, which he ranted a bit about on Twitter today. I haven’t enough experience with tests yet, so I can’t give valid comments, but I’ve begun to understand what he and others are talking about thanks to a heavy focus on unit tests in a university course. Putting tons of time on writing tests instead of actual code seem insane to me, and David’s thoughts about having advice on what not to test seems legit to me (I recommend reading the comments on the Hacker News entry as well).

In the end I think it boils down to a healthy balance, as with everything else in life.

If you’re looking for a designer who can come up with your identity, design your site, create UIs with great user experience for your web and mobile apps, and on top of that code his or her work in HTML/CSS (and why not throw in Javascript in the mix!), then I’m sorry to inform you that you’re hunting unicorns.

Follow the linked article above and read about why startups today can’t find decent designers. Further down the article I think the author pinpoints two issues:

• Companies want “unicorn designers/developers”, “ninjas”, or “rockstars”, or <insert corny brogrammer term here>.
• Their demands are set too high. Let younger guys and girls in.

There are two sides of the designer-developer hybrid part. In the web world front-end code and design are so close together these days, and I think it’s wrong and a mistake to focus on only one of those two. Sure: you could get by, but wouldn’t it be boring not to be able to implement your own designs? Or never be able to create something nice for your own without, say Twitter’s Bootstrap?

In the native world where the “front-end” code generally is a bit heavier and hard-core, I can see how designers really are designers, and developers are developers (if you can do both: awesome!). Personally I think it’s easier to do both code and design in the web world.

The article says there are few “unicorn” designers/developers, e.g. hybrids. For me it’s a matter of interest and a never ending thirst of knowledge: I want to learn advanced Javascript patterns as I read about typography and grid techniques.

Unicorns do exist! How to become one? Never stop moving. If you are one? Consider yourself lucky, and start choosing your next employer with care.

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Also, read the Hacker News comments on the linked article. I’ve also written related posts about designer-developer hybrids:

• Generalist specialists
• Staying hungry and evolving with new technologies

Rachel Andrew on adding bloat and more code in the very beginning of a project, since you might need it. Got to the post via Roger Johansson’s link titled Use only what you need, which I recommend.

I’m indeed interested in reading about new techniques and ways of setting up new web projects as smooth as possible, but as I’ve “grown older” I haven’t tried out every obscure boilerplate out there. They say Hell is other people’s code, and it’s indeed true with HTML and CSS. Those technologies are a huge part of what I do, and some frameworks and boilerplates feels awkward to use. It’s a different case with backend code libraries, which act like black boxes where you use to interface with something.

To me, a boilerplate for a project should be personal and tailored. I’ve before made the mistake of using my own huge boilerplate which included the latest and greatest HTML5 templates, CSS framework written in SCSS, and some custom Javascript fixes. Everytime I started off a new project I had to change, remove or add stuff. No project is thus the same.

Nowadays I add stuff (polyfills, shims, fixes, Javascript) as I go – when I need it.

I actually don’t like Twitter’s Bootstrap at all

The hippie is free and you are free. The hippie hasn’t shut down the big chains, but that isn’t his goal. His goal is to sleep at night, comfortable that he has made choices compatible with his personal beliefs and that he has given other people the freedom to make choices compatible with their own personal beliefs.

I can think of no greater definition of freedom.

A gem. I love the ending paragraph quoted above.