Anyone who knows me understands that my brain farts sometimes. If it is out there I have an opinion on it. Business, Economics, Politics, Parenting … and of course technology. These past few months I have been reading several other websites that are of interest to me. I do, however, try to keep most of my ideas of this form … why? Well, I look to my audience and the original intentions of this site. I put this together because I wanted a way to capture my life experiences, my growing pains, my impressions of the world and share them with family and friends. And well, those listening are not really concerned with what my ideas on developing socket libraries, opinions on interface designs, and expressions on programming techniques … so Krishen gets to listen.
This past week I read some opinions from Daring Fireball on Apple’s Brushed Metal theme. Something I have not really have had a problem with but have cause waves in the developer community ever since it was introduces many moons ago. A further article on themes continued a discussion into the consistency … I read, enjoyed, and can see where he is coming from.
What I wasn’t expecting was that Mike, my old “boss” and friend, responded. In typical fashion, for him, he was able to express his opinions in a very thought-out and structured way … which reminded me of many past arguments over UI design.
Update: And the debate continues
UI design is often personal because while it does have guidelines it relies mostly on what the designer believes “looks good”. It is an artistic combination of form and function … a balance that is difficult for engineers to find. Why? well, to engineers function is the whole reason things are developed so it plays a much higher importance in the design and “look and feel” (read presentation and usability). Pure designers are on the other side of the scale, they are most concerned about things “looking good” and thus neglect functionality. The result: doors that you have to read signs to figure out how to open or 100 page manuals for programming your VCR.
See … went and did it again … brain fart! What this experience really reiterated to me was that I needed a form to express my ideas. Something I have desired for almost a decade. Some of you may recall the website “Coder’s World” … a first attempt back in 1996. Well … today I bring you Technobabel … and now you all can rest easy in the knowledge that you won’t be subjected to these tangents, unless you want to of course 🙂
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I just want to say that I very much enjoyed reading all three posts on themes. It’s a subject I wished more people wrote about.
I have to agree with Mike, Apple’s themes can co-exist because they don’t contradict each other. But, as John pointed out in a postscript, the idea doesn’t really scale. Sure, the widgets don’t contradict each other, but why would a new user assume that?
er, actually, it’s not themes i wished people wrote more about, rather, ui design in general.
Cam, did you consider just creating a technology category on your main blog? It sure makes it a lot easier to read that way and your family can just ignore those posts :).
I did think of just using a category, my ambition is to use it as a collection of “papers” as well as just random thoughts. I felt that it would not be consistent in my regular thread (which is more family oriented). I was also thinking of using a different overall design and layout due to the different focus (possibly putting technology links, defined categories, etc on the side bar).
But don’t worry … I will make sure any updates to Technobabel will get mentioned on this site.