When people ask me what I do for a living I often say, “I am a web programmer”, or “I develop websites” to which they then say, “Oh, you design websites”. At which point I sigh heavily and, depending on who is doing the asking and how much I care at the time, proceed to explain that I do not “design” websites, but I “program” websites, or “make them work” (my favorite illustration: its like if someone tells you he is an auto mechanic and you say to him, “oh, you paint cars”. ). Web developers in general are misunderstood, even by other developers, so I don’t let it bother me (too much).

Today I came across a great article by Christian Heilmann on his site about Web Developers and some of the unique situations we face. A favorite line:

You can be the most amazing developer in your field but if you cannot communicate and distribute this wisdom to others, you are not a lead developer or should get a manager role.

This perfectly describes the situation at one of my former jobs - the so-called “Lead Programmer”
was incapable of sharing or distributing programming knowledge, and it hurt the company. Just one of the reasons I am glad to have moved on. I wonder if it has gotten any better there…