" but most programmers are clueless on the UI side anyways and would be happy to offload that stuff"

That's so wrong on many levels. Quit watching movies and stereotyping programmers as akward geeks. As a programmer, I know and build UIs, and know usability probably much better that you. The problem is that in a startup there are tons of other much harder things to get done.

You can be more helpful if you can pickup the front end part (XHTML, CSS, Graphics, stock photos, logos), and let your programmer handle the hard stuff (programming the backend, databases, content management).

When I do something for fun, I found out that building the HTML/CSS part of it is not much fun, as it is more just an exercise in trial and frustration than just technically challenging. *unless you are doing advanced javascript programing.

I usually just pick ready made templates, and stock images, so I can concetrate on the harder stuff. Once done with the harder part, then working on replacing the UI with something good, is pretty easy.

and remember, all the good programers want good Equity. When I mead good, I mean distributed equaly to the amount of work they do. Nobody wants to do the hard stuff, and get less out of it. They will feel they are cheated, and not appreciated (one of the reasons some of the founders leave). If all you bring on the table is an idea, then you are not worth that much.

"You can be more helpful if you can pickup the front end part (XHTML, CSS, Graphics, stock photos, logos), and let your programmer handle the hard stuff (programming the backend, databases, content management)."

I forgot to add - in most cases UI is not easier than the "hard stuff" (backend)

this is based on my personal experience as a programmer and from the programmers I know professionally and personally (so I'm not just watching movies)

"You can be more helpful if you can pickup the front end part (XHTML, CSS, Graphics, stock photos, logos), and let your programmer handle the hard stuff (programming the backend, databases, content management)."

that's one of the things i meant to say. I guess i just didn't make it clear enough

"When I do something for fun, I found out that building the HTML/CSS part of it is not much fun,"

yes... again I agree programmers either can't or don't like doing ui - sorry i forgot to include the last one

I offered an "easy" solution to the "majority of the work" business issue, not an easy solution to doing the work. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

"most programmers are clueless on the UI side anyways and would be happy to offload that stuff"

Where are you meeting programmers? This statement is troubling to me on multiple levels. A web app is a holistic organism. "Offloading" or decoupling UI from server side processing is a recipe for an incongruent app. Maybe you need to find less clueless programmers.

""Offloading" or decoupling UI from server side processing is a recipe for an incongruent app."

that's a major generalization/assumption

it really depends on the technologies you're using and your team; not everything is built using rails

besides we have web services now and isn't it good practice to decouple the view layer anyway (as little logic as possible)? I mean in many companies there are completely separate teams that handle just ui or serverside tasks

"there are completely separate teams that handle just ui or serverside tasks"

And it shows.

out of curiosity which sites and companies does it 'show'?