[drewmck]

Except he didn't. In douchey-business-guy fashion he tries to put an entire community of transdisciplinary people in their place by telling them to be happy with handling the technical side of things, while people like him interface with users, design the product, run the numbers, market and sell it.

I'm a programmer/interaction designer. In design school we were told by professors that "programmers think in terms of X, but designers think in terms of Y. You should never code if your a designer, and never let a programmer design" While they are correct that exercising one muscle will benefit at the exclusion of others, they go to far with the assertion that there exists some cognitive boundary between design and development. The same goes for singular-thinking business guys, like the author, who attempt to dress down engineers who want to try their hand at something new.

I've never met a engineer tell an aspiring business guy "just be a business guy, don't try to code". In fact, most engineers I know will heap praise at business people who bootstrap their idea, even if the first attempt is a bit wonky. This just proves how badly the person wants their vision to be realized.

New years resolution for 2013: stop trying to clip other's wings.

[ryana]

"In douchey-business-guy fashion he tries to put an entire community of transdisciplinary people in their place"

I think his point is also that this type of thing is not just accepted, but encouraged within engineering circles when talking about business people.

But yes, it wasn't delivered very well and the confrontational nature of it will mean that a lot of people who would do well to heed its advice will immediately turn defensive and get nothing from it.