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Re:If you code HTML, Zen Coding will change your life by jrockway on Sunday May 02, 2010 @06:02AM (#1312279)
If you want to optimize for other people's productivity, that's fine. But that's not what's best for you.

Also, there is a simple solution to this problem -- a program that converts $foo into HTML and a program that converts HTML into $foo. pandoc is an example.

Re:If you code HTML, Zen Coding will change your life by ido on Sunday May 02, 2010 @08:02AM (#1312372)
Which me? Me the business owner that hires both web designers and programmers? Me the team leader that needs to manage a heterogeneous group of people, each with a different skill-set? Me the one-man-shop (and programmer) who outsources the design work?

If I have both web designers and programmers on my team having them communicate can most certainly be my problem (or at the very least a problem I am gravely effected by).

Re:If you code HTML, Zen Coding will change your life by jrockway on Sunday May 02, 2010 @08:53AM (#1312411)
If only you had hired people that could learn new skills.
Re:If you code HTML, Zen Coding will change your life by ido on Sunday May 02, 2010 @09:34AM (#1312436)
You can say that about any new tech, but truth of the matter is that there are certain advantages to using well know & widely used tech.

I'm not talking about zen-coding or pandoc or any tool specifically, you can make the same argument for e.g. clojure vs java: as much as you'd like to use the shiny new tech, you must at least consider the fact that it's a hell of a lot easier to find x new programmers that can use java proficiently than even x/10 that can use clojure proficiently.

It doesn't mean it should be the overriding deciding factor, but the cost of retraining/learning should at least be taken into account when making that decision.