Re-defined behind my back!

I've discovered something. Designers are now programmers, by agreement of just about everybody except myself. Listings for graphic artists are now all for User Interface Developers, Flash Developers, Actionscript developers... I'm sure there are quite a number of skilled visual creative professionals who also happen to be skilled programmers, but in my experience, the visualizers usually cringe at excessive use of code, and the code crunchers would prefer not to be pixel-jockeys. But during my career I have seen the job of "designer" absorb several other careers: image scanner, typesetter, lithographer (truly though, how many designers even now really understand how or why to trap their graphics?), air brush retouch artist . . . I miss the collaboration with all these skilled pros. As a new artist at an ad agency, just a few months out of school, I was able to spend a lot of time with one of the local litho shop owners, and I learned more from him than I did in any of my college classes. Now the guy sells real estate. Sad, this elimination of the team, but apparently it was inevitable. But I cannot for the life of me see how a designer is now also supposed to be a programmer. There is some helpful software, yeah... but I simply can't see it happening. Perhaps the programmers will now all be expected to be designers... aye me. I've already seen the results of THAT idea. No, no, it takes two completely different types of thinkers to really do both of those jobs well. Unfortunately that's not what the ole bottom line wants. The bottom line wants to cross right through one paycheck or the other. I have no solution for that.
...OK... let's see.
play_btn.addEventListener (MouseEvent.CLICK, playMovie);
stop_btn.addEventListener (MouseEvent.CLICK, stopMovie);
function playMovie (event:MouseEvent);void
Oh, yeah. That's what my BFA is all about.

!DOCTYPE heckidunno transitional

Monday: end of sunny; nastytackysoggy by the weekend. Drip-dry trick-or-treaters. Best gas price $2.53 and holding. Just finished playing: DVD "Stardust" -- Robert DeNiro as a "whoopsie" pirate captain, cool!

[[[ Hi Sees... we're first to comment on each other's brand new blogs! Let's see which one of us has an "Oh, Horrors, Child" post first. Got any upcoming misbehavior on schedule? ]]]

Just did a snoop of the source code for another designer's web site. I've been randomly checking to see who is using Doctype declarations. Not as many as I'd expect, but the transition is definitely underway. My own site is still just html, not xhtml, although I do at least have some style sheets in place. I haven't decided what the next incarnation of my site should look like yet. And now I don't get to just think about the design... I have to showcase some more sophisticated coding. I'm not sure why learning to do that is less exciting this time than it was the first time ... back in the previous century when there was no such thing as Flash, or DreamWeaver, or even PageMill yet, I tracked down a web site with a rudimentary tutorial on html that some programmer had been kind enough to post, and started to figure out how to make a web page. It was fun -- like hacking through the jungle, trying to make a way. Now it's more like being lost in a strange city, filled with too many signs and a zillion people who already know where they're going and don't have time to give directions. I don't speak the language and the mountains are in the wrong direction.

I hear there are brilliant programmers out there who really don't like to design. I need to meet these people. I'll bet we could help make each other's lives more fun.