Big Think

Tim Sheiner commented on Jeffrey Zeldman Discusses the Future of Open Source on April 6, 2009, 4:58 PM

Jeffrey;I'm a fan. I think you are always spot-on with your analysis, and great at communicating your ideas.I do, however, have one quibble with this piece. As I understand you, here you are presenting the idea that web design is finally starting to understand that not only does one not need to re-invent the wheel, there is huge value in building on top of existing systems. I agree with this.The part I have a bit of a problem with is that even this stage is still re-inventing the wheel if one takes a perspective that extends out to the design of physical objects. In other words, interchangeable parts, systems approach, standards, etc. have been a well understood part of the disciplines of physical design (product design, architecture, etc.) for a long time. If one looks at the standard processes in these disciplines it becomes clear that web design (really software design) is still in the process of re-inventing some pretty fundamental design principles.To a certain extent the re-design is required because the analogy between software and physical objects is not perfect (a software button is not actually the same as a physical button). However, if we, as a discipline, had been more willing to recognize that the design part of what we do is analogous to other, ancient, forms of design, we might have been able to get to maturity a bit faster. We also might not assume that we have finished re-inventing the wheel.Tim