On Being a Web Craftsman

Slide 1: On Being a Web Craftsman Joshua Porter - bokardo.com Delivered to the March 13, 2008

Slide 2: A craftsman has an intimate understanding of the tools he works with.

Slide 3: “Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.” George Bernard Shaw

Slide 4: Craftsmen are fiercely independent.

Slide 5: Craftsmen appreciate the craftsmanship of others.

Slide 6: ere is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Slide 7: Craftsmen are not driven by money or recognition, but by simply doing Good Work.

Slide 8: “Don’t make something unless it is both necessary and useful; but if it is both necessary and useful, don’t hesitate to make it beautiful.” Shaker Design Philosophy

Slide 9: Craftsmen are blessed/cursed with an acute attention to detail.

Slide 10: The primary focus of the craftsman is the experience of the people who use their design.

Slide 11: “ere is no such thing as information overload, only bad design.” Edward Tufte

Slide 12: Craftsmen are life learners.

Slide 13: “e only successful way to predict the future is to invent it.” Alan Kay

Slide 14: TROUBLE SPOTS Craftsmanship takes a lot of time. Craftsmen have trouble managing people. Craftsmen don’t necessarily play well with others. Craftsmen tend not to be business savvy.

Slide 15: A craftsman goes his own way.

Slide 16: “It is easy in the world to live aer the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live aer our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Slide 17: Markup & Style Society http://markupandstyle.org/ Bokardo http://bokardo.com/