Re: Web designers are not idiots

Something I wrote in response to a subthread in part of a topic "Web designers are not idiots" at The Joel on Software Discussion Group.

I fail to see the point of arguing that "people who work with HTML are programmers" if that means stretching the definition of programming beyond any descriptiveness and usefulness.

In the case of tomato being a fruit or a vegetable, both defitions of fruit have merit. One is botanical, useful to scientists, and the other is culinary, useful to cooks and ordinary people.

Saying that writing HTML is programming is akin to saying fungi are animals: you can make a reasonable argument to that effect, but the arguments for the opposite view are stronger. I see the point about demystifying programming, and I too have sometimes told people how things they already do are in a sense programming while explaining what programming is. However, I also think that a proper explanation of programming requires explaining how "programming" is different from the "programming in a sense".

Anyway, if you read web designer and developer blogs and forums, there's a clear consensus about the terms. Working with HTML is "coding", and the people who do that are "HTML coders". Programming is "coding" too. I know from first-hand experience what coding HTML and CSS is like (and how hard work it is), and I see no disrespect in saying it's different from programming which is something I also do.

Originally posted 2006-07-01.