Full stack engineer? Give the Swiss Army knife you to chop the devil good!?

From www.techgogogo.com

Editor's note: This article from the medium top three recommended articles, issued by up to 2,125 recommendations, the Chinese version by Heaven Zhuhai Branch Rudder compiled. The full text of today's popular industry's "All-stack xx division" of the argument to criticize, put forward their own unique point of view. People discovering when they have not heard of the use of the Swiss Army Knife, the ancients killed the chicken when the use of sledgehammer; a professional knife-guest, with absolutely not Stephen Chow's that kill pig knife ...

Now everywhere is put forward to say that their company to recruit a full stack of XX division, for example, "to recruit a number of can be coded all the time designers." If you go to Google Now "whether a designer should learn to program ( Heaven Zhuhai Branch rudder Note: When compiling, please change in English:" Should designers learn to code "), Google will be able to give you a very loose return 25 million results.

Frankly speaking, I am not opposed to a designer who has the ability to encode. However, I think there is a problem with this hot but familiar statement, "We need a full-time designer who can encode/we need a well-versed design of all-stack development engineers," because this argument hides some potentially serious problems.

If you can write code (foreground and background) as the boss of a product design team, I know very well that this skill set is very eye-catching. The ability of prototype design, design prototype through code to achieve the cross-disciplinary ability, can be the ultimate realization of tuning and as a finished product to market ability, dream Ah!

However, as a designer, I am very aware of where the boundaries should be, I am not a development engineer, I do not expect to write the finished product level, really can launch the market for mass production of products code.

Now this hard-to-ask designer must have the ability to encode, a feeling is that the design team and development team should be integrated, each member of the team is the designer and programmer of the feeling of a fit, a so-called full-stack internet monster.

Brother, let's be realistic. Design and development (both front-end and backstage) are very professional occupations, each of which requires years of learning without hours, and how many years of immersion can be mastered. Now you're just going to want to open up a Design Master and develop a master of the all-rounder, you are not daydreaming is what.

In fact, that's what we really need : A designer who can design amazing products, and a developer who can develop an unmatched product, and these two people can work together seamlessly.

So how do we get there, which requires a key factor: empathy (empathy).
So here's what we should say: we need to recruit a designer who can understand the code, or we need to recruit a software development engineer who can understand the design.

As for the reason why designers need to understand the code, it is the same reason that development engineers need to understand the design. It's not that you need an engineer to become a designer, but a software engineer with empathy to understand the designer. Be able to use the designer's language to deal with the designer, to have a clear understanding of why the designer should be so well-intentioned and hard-working.

And this is a very important way for us to break through the information island, open the conversation between designers and development engineers, and work together to communicate, so as to make great products. However, do not insist that they all to master each other's technology, otherwise they will probably in their own professional can not become experts.

When one says that their company needs "a number of designers to encode," My mind is that what they need is not a designer, but a Swiss army knife, a screwdriver, scissors, a knife, a toothpick, and a saw function.

The problem, however, is that the Swiss Army knife appears to have all the features, but it does not have to be the same if it is to be professionally useful. Have you ever seen a craftsman with a Swiss Army knife to give your house a screw saw wood for carpentry? Have you ever seen a tailor take a Swiss Army knife and make you a dress? Or did you see a chef chopping up a Swiss army knife to cut meat with you?

People are old confused know to take a switchblade watermelon knife what come out Chuangjianghu, and you want to engage a Swiss army knife to conquer? Therefore, the Swiss Army knife can only be used in some very basic occasions, but must not be able to take it out in the big scene to replace the professional equipment, otherwise it will be less, laugh off the big teeth. Maybe it's possible to take out the scene occasionally.
Worse, it is because it wants to do everything that makes it difficult for us to define it as a "knife". Don't you think it's a sibuxiang?

People discovering when they have not heard of the use of the Swiss Army Knife, the ancients killed the chicken when the use of sledgehammer; a professional knife-guest, with absolutely not Stephen Chow's that kill pig knife (a smile).
So say, 工欲善其事, its prerequisite. Similarly, a professional team must have special expertise in their own weapons.

I don't want the designers in my company to spend a lot of time learning about the latest cross-browser CSS solutions, or just scratching their brains to learn how a JavaScript closure is a TMD. And vice versa, I wouldn't want my development engineers to spend time researching the color theory of design techniques.

I hope my designers will spend more time keeping up with the latest mobile interface design standards and learning the latest design practice techniques. I need them to take the time to learn about the design preferences of our users and to discover which ones we haven't designed yet to meet. I need them to focus on the things that are designed to make our products work best. Of course, a small part of the learning is to learn to understand the code, so that they can be more efficient, more empathetic and the development team mingle, together to achieve a great product team.

So, now outside the street to hear the demand for recruitment to the same as programmers can write code of all-time designers, in fact, it will only make things worse. In fact, these people's brains are kicked by the donkey, do not know precisely because the developer is not a and professional designers to fit the person, he can really from the user's point of view to examine the designers to get out of the design is really what users want. And for the designer, he should be able to how his design will be developed to achieve some understanding, if you can also code to make a prototype, reward, lunch plus a chicken leg! However, we have to give up from the inside of the idea that the designer must also be a programmer (as well as the pressure of the designer), in the same vein, it is not necessary to turn a development engineer into a Superman for development and design.

The one who can master everything is supposed to have, but at least I haven't seen it in reality. "Journey to the World" is seen, but they are not people, others are monkeys, called Sun monkey!
If you can get your team members to focus on their areas of expertise and understand the areas of the team to get enough empathy, then you don't need to have the idea of creating a Swiss Army knife. Instead, you already have a team of people who have their own kill skills and can work together, isn't that enough for you?

Full stack engineer? Give the Swiss Army knife you to chop the devil good!?