Desktop and Web developers are two different creatures. We have diatribes about the differences between Linux versus Windows , between Java versus .NET, between Flash versus Silverlight, between Oracle versus SQL Server, and between a lot of other technologies, but have we overlooked one of the more fundamental battles—the one between desktop developers and Web developers.
Can a person be both a Web developer and a desktop developer? Or, is that like loving both Macs and PCs and thus to diametrically opposed to make sense? There was an interesting postin VBForums today as a response to a discussion on my blog post about RIAs. This post by FunkyDexter was interesting enough that I thought I’d post it here. It is a bit generalized, but it does make interesting points:
Desktop developers worry about functionality. In our opinion presentation is for wimps. There are only three colours in our world, grey, blue and white – and technically white isn’t a colour so there’s only two. See, we’ve even reduced the complexity of the spectrum to a binary function. Buttons are square. There are two kinds of buttons: OK and Cancel. They have OK and Cancel written on them so you know which is which. Pictures? Pictures?! We don’t want no steenking pictures.
Web developers are different and strange. They worry about what things look like. They delve into hues of orange and green and use bizarre techniques like ‘shading’. Their buttons are funny shapes. Sometimes you can’t tell they’re buttons at all, let alone what they do. Hell, sometimes their buttons even move around the screen, fleeing from the cursor like a politician from the truth. It’s bright, it’s dazzling, it’s flashy. It’s also completely dysfunctional but that’s beside the point… look… look… my buttons rotating… ROTATING!
Face it. We’re never going to agree. We’re just too different. Some people claim they’re both desktop and web developer. These people are clearly deluded.
So do you agree? Are people who claim to be both desktop developers and web developers clearly deluded? Can a person love both, the Mac and the PC, Linux and Windows, or even developing for the web and the desktop?