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Designing and developing are two different facets of a web page. The difference between web design and web development is a web designer designs the website and a web developer develops the website. This could be one person who excels in both areas or, it can be two distinct individuals. Not every web developer or every web designer will have the best of both worlds; one will either be better at one than at the other while having enough skill in the lesser one to do a creditable job of getting the web site up and running.

A web developer will be adept at writing the code, but may care more for his craft than the look of the web page. He will at least have an acquaintance with several languages and will be adept in dynamic html; will know how to use html (hypertext markup language); will know how to use css (cascading style sheets), and will have no problem scripting.

His expertise will be in functionality and how to do this or that and most days he will find most likely be found in a secluded room somewhere bent over a computer getting his widgets in correctly. He possibly will care less about appearance than in his ability to make his web site dance and sing and perform. This delights the web developer. Although he could as easily be of a conservative nature and deplore web shenanigans. It all depends on the job he has signed on to complete.

Web designers, on the other hand, will be more interested in how effective the words are and how they are displayed to their best advantage. Their expertise is more into the messages the written words contain and not into show and tell gimmickry. They do not buy into the idea that a picture is worth a thousand words; they much prefer a thousand words and the illimitable amount of pictures these paint. They will look at the appearance of the page and arrange and rearrange and may or may not be able t develop their ideas. They may need a web designer to complete their task.

Both on the other hand may or may not know much about how the other works. It is possible a web designer knows little about how a website is developed and this is to their disadvantage. They should at least have a workable knowledge. A web developer may not care much for the austerity of a web designer and will insist on brightening up the website with a little music and a few pictures. He may even bring in a dancing lion or two to the chagrin of a graphic designer who sees real beauty in the curve of her serifs.

The best way to distinguish between the two, however, is to see them with this analogy: A web designer is to literature as a web developer is to math.

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