Handcoding
First I am not going to tell you why you should or should not use a WYSIWYG editor. I am going to say my thoughts on why we should hand-code our pages.
To learn how anything works in this world most of the time you have to dig into the guts of it. You can not sit there and look at it and figure out what little intricacies make it tick. I can not look at a computer and tell you how it works. I could read a book and then tell you, but how could I tell you how much thermal grease should really be applied to a cpu/heatsink without having done so myself? If you want to understand your page then you have to make it…by hand.
Painting With A Purpose
Every artist has a story behind their painting. They can tell you that every stroke has a purpose. Nothing is ever done just for the sake of doing it. When you hand code your pages every item you add is added for a purpose. You take a greater sense in what you are doing and have a greater understanding of your own pages. Your work should be your own and if you do not understand it then it never becomes your own.
Typewriters Are Evil
I have a theory about classical literature. I believe that there are more classical works and will always be more classical works written before the typewriter than there ever will be after. The reason I believe this is because writers had to take more care into what they put down on paper before the typewriter came about. They could not waste too many resources on unnecessary words. When they wrote the first “T” in “The” to start the novel they knew why they did it. They felt the “T” being written and therefore immersed themselves in their own novels. Their works truly became their own. You can never get to that level of immersion with a typewriter or word processor. You can not get to that level with a WYSIWYG editor.
Power and Control
Hand coding your pages gives you unprecedented control over where each element appears on the page. You control where each element goes. You control how your code is formatted. You have the power.
There Is A Time And A Place
I am not saying that you should write out every single XHTML page on your site. It would be silly to hand code a hundred headers when all you need to do is write one header and simply include it in all of your files. I hand coded my header and side bar for this site. I hand coded the templates to every page and therefore I know what makes this site tick. I do not hand code my entries because there is no need. MoveableType does this work for me. The site is coded and now automated for me so that I can focus on the content that I write (be it through a keyboard). My entries usually only consists of a <p> here and a <h2> there.
I never understood why schools make their students design pages through WYSIWYG editors. I am sure there are reasons, but to me it is like teaching someone how to paint by numbers. If you really want to be good and gain an appreciation for your own hard work then hand coding is where it is at. After you become somewhat knowledgeable in XHTML/CSS then by all means find the best tool for production.
I’m not going to disagree that handcoding is a better way to build and to learn. I am going to disagree with this though:
You can never get to that level of immersion with a typewriter or word processor. You can not get to that level with a WYSIWYG editor.
What evidence do you have for that? It sounds nice, but it sounds like the kind of thing people who haven’t had their thesis ruined by a spilled drink might say.
Are you telling me that if the great writers of the past lived today, they would not use a word processor? You can’t possibly know that. They might, they might not, but in the end a pen is just another tool, not a magical gateway to talent.
Many great writers rewrote their novels, on paper, edited them, ripped them apart and put them together in a different order. Nowdays we do the same thing, just more easily.
I’m sure it has some impact - perhaps there is less thought put into some writing. However, to draw a line at a certain point, and say ‘this tool allows immersion and this one does not’ is completely artificial.
Great writers have great thoughts, and disseminate them with whatever technology they choose to use. The medium is the message? Perhaps, but a crap message is a crap message in ink or pixels too.
By Mathew Patterson on September 20, 2005 12:22 pm
Hey, that’s why I called it a theory :-)
By Scrivs on September 20, 2005 12:25 pm
That’s why they call them comments too :)
By Mathew Patterson on September 20, 2005 12:26 pm
I dig where you’re comnig from, but I think you’re making alot of blanket statements here.
People learn in all kinds of ways. Some of us are right brained, some are left. Some of us can code by hand - others of us need to see what that code is doing in real time.
Also, some aren’t setup to be able to preview locally what they are doing without having an editor. They code, upload, change, upload again…it’s just faster / more convienant with an editor that allows you to see what you’re doing.
I agree that hand coding should be taught in school. However, my feeling is that WYSIWYG is taught because, like it or not, WYSWYG is how programming is done in the “real world”. Also, I would imagine schools get great deals from software companies on enterprise licenses and discounts for students.
By Mark on September 20, 2005 12:32 pm
Hand coding your pages gives you unprecedented control over where each element appears on the page. You control where each element goes. You control how your code is formatted. You have the power.
Throw out the rest of the entry. That passage above is really the only argument for hand coding. And a damn good one too.
By Ryan on September 20, 2005 1:02 pm
I don’t think WYSIWYG is how it’s done everywhere in the “real world.” I know a lot of professional programmers who have to hand-code every day. Visual Basic lets you do a lot visually, but for really complex and unique situations, hand-coding is the only way to go. I do think WYSYWYG editors have a place. I even use them. But I hand code and preview locally, then if needed I edit static pages with a WYSIWYG for quick edits. I always flip to source to make sure the markup is valid before I upload.
I think there are places for some of the new WYSIWYG editors. I’ve heard Dreamweaver 8 supports standards-compliant tableless layouts using CSS. If that’s true, and the code is clean, I think there will be uses for it. I would much rather use a WYSIWYG for small 1-page newsletters and promotion pages that 1) aren’t going to be indexed by search engines and 2) are temporary pages.
By Brandon Eley on September 20, 2005 1:35 pm
” like it or not, WYSWYG is how programming is done in the “real world ” ”
I would tend to disagree to that statement. A majority of the designers I know prefer to hand-code the sites that they create. It allows them to have precise control over what the finished product is like, other than the visual of pulling and dragging elements around a page ala Dreamweaver.
To use as an example doctors learn what is on the inside to know what happens to the body on the outside (visually). If that were the opposite we all would be in a heap of trouble and be fixing mistakes constantly (i.e. Frontpage )
By Jason Law on September 20, 2005 1:44 pm
Mark: Are you combingin WYSIWYG HTML editors with IDEs for coding? I can see IDEs being in use in the real world, but have yet to come across a professional designer using any such tools. Of course my experience with professionals is limited.
By Scrivs on September 20, 2005 2:06 pm
I spend a lot of time doing html inside programming IDEs like IDEA, to integrate the design into the display layer code - it’s not a design tool by any means.
I do still fire up Dreamweaver every know and then for 5 second prototyping or working with ugly legacy table layouts. As far as I am concerned, it doesn’t matter what tool you use, as long as you know what you are doing with it.
By Mathew Patterson on September 20, 2005 2:14 pm
I agree 1000%! When I had a PC I used TopStyle Pro, but now that I have a Mac, I cannot find a good program. Does anyone know of a program as good as TopStyle Pro for Mac? (No, I do not like BBEdit.)
By William Stewart on September 20, 2005 2:26 pm
I do all my sites by hand coding. WYSIWYG never seems to work that well. In my experience; WYSIWYG editors like Dreamweaver produce extra tags and things all over the place.
By Ben on September 20, 2005 2:45 pm
Paul - No, I’ve never used IDEs
Brandon - I never said they were used “everywhere”
Jason - A good deal of the developers I know as well like to handcode. Just like a lot of the professional photographers I know insist on adding their post production photographic effects in a darkroom. Does that imply that any professional photographer using Photoshop to do the same is not worth their salt?
By Mark on September 20, 2005 2:49 pm
Mark:
Of course not, regarding the use of Photoshop. As long as the professional who uses the tool understands the outcome that he/she will receive with said tool. I understand the draw and use of WYSIWYG editors for educational demonstrations. However WYSISWYG editors also encourage new designers to fall into a mode of code laziness. That the applications themselves will do everything for them that they need without a clear understanding of what really goes on under the hood of a page to make it great or work cross platform, backward/forward compatible. I always held the belief that good sites were created by people who used WYSIWYG editors but extraordinary sites were created by people who hand-coded they’re site to perfection.
By Jason Law on September 20, 2005 3:00 pm
Jason, you’re giving the software too much credit here. WYSIWYG editors and other tools only offer convienance and time savings. If one suffers from laziness, it’s because they were prone to laziness to begin with and had no real inclination to get their hands dirty - regardless of whether a professor or other mentor was there to guide them or not.
Here is the point I am trying to make –
Once upon a time, craftsman of all types were given the time they needed to produce a thing of beauty. That world, however is long gone — due tomorrow is now one day too late.
Tools like Dreamweaver, Photoshop, digital cameras, cellphones…whatever allow all of us to move quicker and produce results faster.
Film cameras will arguably always produce better photos. Darkrooms will always produce more “real” results. Brushes will most always produce more awe inspiring artwork — even if each stroke is not precalculated, and handcoding will always produce better / cleaner code.
However, if you can’t spit it your hand created masterpiece out quick enough in today’s instant society, you and your beautiful hands are tossed out for the one who can create an equally acceptable piece of work with a piece of software.
Fast is the rule. If you can do that with handcoding — congratulations and more power to you.
That, I feel, is the lesson being taught in school today, and that is why I think emphasis is on learning the tool, instead of learning the craft.
Of course, I could be wrong. It’s been 20 years since I formally passed through the halls of a higher learning institution.
By Mark on September 20, 2005 3:18 pm
Mark,
I agree that WYSIWYG creates things faster. But faster is not always better. I hope that educators begin to see the light as I have informed all of my past instructors on how the real world is, compared to what they have taught me in classes.
Acceptable work/code isnt what we should be aiming for. Instead we should aim at excellence, I know this may sound a bit preachy and all but I see all these new graduates coming out of college with their Dreamweaver books and their limited knowledge of basic coding and are going to be basically hit by the bus which is that if you dont know how things work you are not going to know how to fix things.
I would say that with my experience, 80% of my time is dedicated to support related concerns dealing with things from items not lining up to layouts being messed up. The basic designer who uses a WYSIWYG editor may not understand what the problem is unless they understand what the underlying issue is.
By Jason Law on September 20, 2005 3:35 pm
I wholeheartedly agree Jason, and at this point I think we’re coming to the same conclusion from different sides of the field.
It really is encouraging to me to see that there seems to be a move back to craftsmanship - or at least the desire for it.
I guess I’ve just finally came to the realization after forty + years that my dad was right when he told me as a kid, it’s one thing to want to change the ways of world, it’s quite another to actually do it.
By Mark on September 20, 2005 4:00 pm
I may be young (24), but I’m a fast learner when it comes to the realization of real world vs. education. Maybe there needs to be some discussion on education, cause thats where I think all of these issues stem from.
By Jason Law on September 20, 2005 4:08 pm
Hmm… No one has mentioned anything about problem solving.
WYSIWYG editors, typewriters, photoshop, etc have taught all of us how to crank things out faster. At what expense? Generally knowledge.
As a WYSIWYG user, you are limited to the capabilities of the editor you are using. If you constantly rely on WYSIWYG editors, you will not be able to do any problem solving when you come across a problematic layout/design. You will be more inclined to sacrafice the design to fit the limitations of your WYSIWYG editor.
By Kyle Posey on September 20, 2005 4:14 pm
I disagree Kyle,
Most WYSIWYG editors allow you to edit the source of the page you are working on. Its not the tools fault, but the designers dependancy on the visual aspect of the tool.
By Jason Law on September 20, 2005 4:20 pm
If you don’t get taught how things are ideally in school when will you ever get the chance for it? Students should learn how things should be done so that when they get to the real world and find out things aren’t always so perfect (assuming they ever work for someone that requires they use a wysiwyg) they have a foundation to fall back on and make things right.
Most teachers I’ve come across use WYSIWYG editors as class requirements because (1) They don’t know anything else themselves… (2) they think it’s easier or (c) They feel that as designers / information professionals / usability specialists / interaction managers / whatever that it’s not their job to know or teach coding in their design / information / usability / management / whatever classes. And they are partly right. But at least in my program (with it’s web development concentration) no one stops to think.. well whose job is it? They just require sites realize most of the class doesn’t know how to do it outside of word and point them to dreamweaver as a better solution. But that’s a slightly different rant.
As to the speed reason… well of course people are going to be faster at what they learn to use. Is a fast handcoder faster than a fast wysiwyger? Who knows. But if we’re talking strictly workforce value I woulld guess that it’s less efficient to try to go from wysiwyg to handcoding than to go the other way around.
By sunshine on September 20, 2005 4:23 pm
I’ll never hire a designer or developer doing front end Web “stuff” who doesn’t know how to code by hand. Not saying you need to hand code everything, but you at least need to know how.
As far as the actual work you do. I personally find hand coding much more effective and less time consuming. Then again, I think I understand the practical implementation of the technology better than say a software application like Dreamweaver. ;0)
By Keith on September 20, 2005 4:24 pm
Being an Interactive Design student and a fan of hand coding, it’s frustraiting for me to take web design classes at my school. The overwhelming emphasis is on short cuts and cheats via Dreamweaver. An “introduction to web design” was not spend talking about code or even the unique requirements for designing a page for the web but on how to use dreamweaver.
By Stephen Caver on September 20, 2005 5:05 pm
I do hand code my HTML since day one that was some nine years ago, so yes, I am biased.
WYSIWYG hardly makes coding faster comparing to writing code with decent editor (syntax highlight, code compleation, snippets.). In few keypresses I can acomplish more and faster than fiddling around with the mouse.
Except, maybe, tables. THIS is that WYSIWYG tools make easy. Every day I see small and big web design firms launching projects with 30-300(that’s not a typo) tables being used for layout. Can you imagine any sane developer hand coding 100+ tables for layout?
But yes this is also true: “As far as I am concerned, it doesn’t matter what tool you use, as long as you know what you are doing with it.”.
William, did you try skEdit?
By Rimantas on September 20, 2005 5:13 pm
Jason: Yes, most all WYSWYG editors allow you to edit your code, but most people that rely on WYSIWYG are not capable of much of anything that the WYSIWYG can’t do. You are correct when you say its the user’s dependancy, but isn’t that what WYSIWYG editors are made for? If the user doesn’t want to depend on the WYSIWYG editor why would they use the WYSIWYG?
By Kyle Posey on September 20, 2005 5:54 pm
As for me the difference is in style of thinking.
Hand coding means structure/semantic/logical coding anf WYSIWYG means visual coding.
I hate WYSIWYG because of related style of thinking. It is ok for some dev, prototyping maybe, but not for web. I mean, _right web_.
By Alex on September 20, 2005 6:36 pm
Nobody seems to have spelled out my main reason to code strictly by hand. You spend your life learning new stuff, keeping up to date, reading mailing lists, visiting design blogs. How are you going to teach a program to grow with you?
By dejankozina on September 20, 2005 6:54 pm
Alex just mentioned a very key point. (Damn public computers, my spacebar is broken…) The web is meant to be semantic. (X)HTML is meant to be semantic. What place has WYSIWYG got in editing something non-visual?
I’m not talking about CSS, yes, despite the fact that I would still never touch a WYSIWYG tool I think under the right conditions it’s feasible.
It doesn’t matter if you’re right or left brained, we don’t see left-brained people hand-coding SVG into the greatest artworks of all time. Imagine the Mona Lisa exactly as it is now, coded in SVG. Wrong language, wrong purpose, wrong medium. Sure, if you can match the Mona Lisa in SVG go for it, but most if not all would be feeble attempts lacking any merit.
I’m not comparing my XHTML to the Mona Lisa, but the same principles apply. If you can’t hack it in a text editor then maybe semantics isn’t your place. Harsh, but true.
By DJ on September 20, 2005 7:17 pm
I teach web design and most of the html part of the course is mandatory hand coding. Many students complain that there is no need since the WYSIWYG editors can do it all for them. I tell them that even the best editors (Dreamweaver IMHO) requires developers to get into code view and tinker at times. Hand coding allows you to understand the code better and troubleshoot problems.
By the end of semester a surprising number of students have decided they prefer hand coding.
By steve on September 20, 2005 8:19 pm
Aren’t WYSIWYG tools just a method for deploying things that were previously available only to coders to a larger audience? I don’t think any serious programmers use WYSIWYG HTML tools (?).
In a lot of ways, they’re for people who want the web to be the same as Microsoft Word in terms of usability :) That’s not an unreasonable assumption for someone to make who doesn’t understand the depth of what’s going on with the web. And for people who don’t want to understand that depth — a WYSIWYG tool is a must.
Even if you could develop some sort of UBER-WYSIWYG tool, who would your audience even be? The hand-coding details people? :) Maybe this is why WYSIWYG tools are intentionally surface-oriented.
By A. Casalena on September 20, 2005 8:24 pm
I’ve been using WordPress.com as my blog for the week and learning of what possible benefits there are to WYSIWYG editing for me. If I had never known of all the other HTML tags available by first learning to hand code XHTML, I’d never have known the other possibilities to formatting and hacking the layout to do more of what I want in the WYSIWYG editor. In knowing so, I can have the best of both worlds.
WYSIWYG isn’t always what you get. ;)
For most people thats enough…if someone really wants to learn how to do something themselves, they will. So long as those teachers you mention discuss the other possiblities for those students in your example, I don’t see a problem with teaching the majority out there with the easiest tools to begin with.
The more they use, the more they learn.
Typewriters are just like printers… there are often many drafts. Often beginning with hand written ones. It comes down to individuals choice and use of those tools. Sure they may influence, but that just creates more diversity rather than less. We might not have those specially structured documents if it weren’t for those tools…
By craig on September 20, 2005 8:35 pm
In 1998, when I first learned HTML in a college course, the professor insisted that we code every bit of HTML by hand and using things like DreamWeaver and GoLive was not allowed. I’m so grateful, that I had someone who cared enough to make me learn this way. It has served me well, throughout my career.
By Brian Sweeting on September 21, 2005 12:18 am
I’ve used Dreamweaver (no experience with GoLive/Frontpage/etc) in the past, and where I’ve seen there benefits are:
- Smaller sites where client can’t afford CMS (this was before popularization of M/T, WP, TXP for smaller sites) and Dreamweaver was beneficial for setting up templates with non-editable regions, etc. It’s much easier to set these templates up if you’re working in the environment that the client will be working in as well.
- The use of Dreamweavers resuable library elements makes development go a little bit quicker, especially on a small team.
One other thing to note, while I create my XHTML/CSS 100% by hand today, the last version of Dreamweaver that I used (MX 2004) actually had pretty clean code. I could be wrong, but I don’t remember any extraneous tags/elements. I think it’s a bit of a myth carried over from the earlier days of the web.
My biggest problem with WYSIWYG’s has always been the amount of screen space available. I pretty much do all of my work on a laptop(1024×768), and there’s just usually too much extra property panes, etc in a program like Dreamweaver, and I end up feeling claustrophobic in it.
Lastly, where are all these people still using Dreamweaver? Most jobs I see these days require an ability to hand-code, a good understanding of CSS, JavaScript, etc. The only jobs I see in my area (DC) that continue to use Dreamweaver are smaller non-profits and associations.
By Kyle on September 21, 2005 12:50 am
Yeah, sometimes i feel wysiwyg are too user friendly. People don’t realize what’s going on, they fully rely on the icons and pictures that do everything for them.
Handcoding allows more control because you’re working with the nuts and bolts.
some wysiwyg editors also add some extra stuff that only increases the file size too. They don’t see the full design of what you want, so it can’t predict how to add things according to the full design.
handcoding all the way.
By Joseph Hsu on September 21, 2005 9:29 am
I worked for a company that used a CMS with a browser-based WYSIWYG interface that allowed people with no coding experience to create and edit content. Inevitably, people would produce pages that did not render correctly, and in many cases the only way to identify the problem was to look at the code that was written behind the scenes.
Unfortunately, pages will break. Having a good understanding of the underlying code is very useful in these situations.
Software packages like Dreamweaver seem to be drifting towards the likes of Microsoft Word, with a number of features that many people will never need. Lately, I’ve been moving towards a more minimalistic approach, looking for simple tools that do the job well without feature bloat.
By Trev on September 26, 2005 6:04 pm
Very true.
And you’ll notice that ‘real’ programmers don’t mess around with high level code generators such as ‘C’ or Assembler.
We go straight to the heart of the problem and use a microscope and magnet to program the hard drive manually.
Wel,l, maybe not, but I admit i hand write all my own html.
By Leon Bambrick on September 27, 2005 7:01 pm
This is exactly what I’ve been saying. Glad to see someone else says this. I’m totally against using WYSIWYG editors for the exact reasons you said and more. I’m very strong believer in standard compliance.
By The Warden on September 30, 2005 10:51 pm
Where I work they have it right: I’m called a Web App Programmer and the guy that uses Dreamweaver is a competent Web Designer. My main tool is HomeSite+ and .NET editors (Web Matrix, VWD, VS.NET). Thank god Adobe/Macromedia are still bundling Homesite+ with Studio 8.
For me, I can completely visualize the page as I code it. Dreamweaver can throw together some pretty cool little websites, but the real heavy backend based sites can’t be made with WYSIWYG editors.
I once fixed a Dreamweaver coded site and reduced the page size by 50%. For part of it, I dropped loads of redundant Javascript and replaced it with pure XHTML and CSS menus.
Some claim WYSIWYG editors are more efficient, but I guarantee you that with my custom written, standards based, code snippets I’m twice as fast and efficient than any Dreamweaver user.
Others claim WYSIWYG editors eliminate redundant and repetitive coding, but have they ever heard of copy & paste and/or template files? I use them all the time to avoid repetition. Any good programmer does.
I think the real debate here is simple vs. complex. Dreamweaver is great for a “mickey mouse” style website, but let’s see Dreamweaver come up with code for database interacting DLLs.
By Chris Luckhardt on September 30, 2005 11:24 pm
I’m a professional developer. It’s always a mix of both WYSIWYG and hand coding that will save you time and make sure you have performance and scalibility.
By Charles DC on September 30, 2005 11:40 pm
–quote–
You can never get to that level of immersion with a typewriter or word processor. You can not get to that level with a WYSIWYG editor.
What evidence do you have for that? It sounds nice, but it sounds like the kind of thing people who haven’t had their thesis ruined by a spilled drink might say.
–end quote–
Actually, Neil Gaiman writes the first draft for all of his novels with pen/pencil and paper. He says that using a word processor tends to lead to a “rolling edit”. Of course, his subsequent drafts are usually done with a word processor. He mentioned this little tidbit on The Screensavers on TechTV back before it’s demise.
Stephen King, who does use a word processor, also warns of the danger of spending too much time fiddling with software instead of just “writing the damn thing”. He mentions this in his book “On Writing”.
–quote–
However, if you can’t spit it your hand created masterpiece out quick enough in today’s instant society, you and your beautiful hands are tossed out for the one who can create an equally acceptable piece of work with a piece of software.
–end quote–
Actually, the reverse is true. High quality items, Rolls Royce, Apple’s Macintosh, are produced in fewer quantites at a slower pace and demand a higher price. While it’s true that you will have a larger consumer base that will buy cheap, rapidly-produced, acceptable products there still exists a market that will pay a premium for outstanding products.
My own personal opinion? I tend to agree with the author. If you know what you’re doing and you happen to look at the source code some of these WYSIWYG editors produce, it’ll make you cringe.
While it won’t make that much of a difference to your grandmother how slowly your website loads, sites that attract a lot of visitors can see real bandwidth savings from a lean, hand-crafted site, or at least hand-tweaked templates.
By Phil McClure on October 1, 2005 12:40 am
>I never understood why schools make their students design pages through WYSIWYG editors.
-It saves your time
-Computers are meant to automate your work
-Once you understood the concept anytime you can change some code to get exact result you want
-Learn how to design complicated page with different effects
If you see bigger web companies like yahoo or amazon they do use all sort of technique (WYSWYG and hand coding) and always have dedicated separate team to design web pages.
In short combination of both should work for professionals.
By vivek on October 1, 2005 3:29 am
I’m both a writer and a painter, and your examples are very potent. Perhaps not as much for someone who isn’t one of these things, but for me, they are powerful. I don’t agree that there is less of an immersion in your writing when it’s done on the computer, but there is a lack of connection. Writing on a computer is less intimate than writing by hand.
And it’s the same between coding with WYSIWYG editors and coding by hand. I hand code my pages, amature though they may be, and one lady I worked with kept asking me why I wouldn’t use a WYSIWYG editor. I told her that I’d tried a WYSIWYG editor and I couldn’t “feel” the page. I had no clue what was going on inside it, even when I looked at the coding. I hated the feeling and haven’t used one since then.
When I create, that connection is the most important thing for me, because when I have that connection, the work itself comes out exactly the way it should be.
By Beka on October 1, 2005 3:37 am
If you think that you can learn by way of WYSIWYG anywhere near the depth that handcoding does, you’re simply delusional and contributing to the collective brain-numbing present in the workforce today. I will not try to convince you of the benefits of handcoding over visual development. This would be preaching, and i have never been much for that. Good luck to you and have a nice life.
By Jeremy on October 1, 2005 6:42 pm
I have to say that I am taking computer programming in my school, 1 semester of VB.Net and 1 of Java, and we use a combination of Microsoft’s VB.Net IDE, which is a WYSIWYG editor, and handcoding, and I think that having a WYSIWYG editor is a great thing for learning how to handcode. I can create something in the design page, then look at the code page and learn how to handcode what I just did. Then I take what I have just learned and expand on it.
By Adalgiso on October 2, 2005 11:57 pm
I have to admit that I am glad my education focused on hand-coding back in the day. But it seems silly and elitist to completely write off WYSIWYG editors like Dreamweaver and GoLive which are meant to work in tandem with hand-coding, not replace it. Every tool has it’s uses.
By Anthony on October 3, 2005 2:28 pm
For me, its all about accuracy and efficiency. In addition to all the reasons discussed regarding why one should hand code, the most important one I think is being missed is accuracy. I don’t mean control and placement necessarily, but more about coding to standards - making sure your code works in all browsers. I seem to find myself constantly getting work that involves me cleaning up legacy code - and it is AMAZING how much redundant and unecessary code people put in code. I have literaly begun to track how much code I pull from a given page, and on average, I can reduce the amount of code on a page by 10% without sacrificing any look, feel, or functionality. Over my career, I will be saving soooooo much processing time and bandwidth it is incredible.
I have always said, WYSIWYG editors are like fast food for teh internet - its quick, easy, but eventually catches up with your waistline(wasteline).
:-)
By Derek Versteegen on October 5, 2005 9:36 am
For those of you who like the benefit of WYSIWYG and also like to opportunity to hand tweak the code.
XStory is a new GPL alternative that spans the handcoding - WYSIWYG divide. XHTML+CSS WYSIWYG editor publisher for single source. Publishes to web, pdf and wiki.
We use it to publish Creative Commons health information in brochure, poster and web form from the same source.
By David Pratten on October 6, 2005 11:16 am
Personally, I was taught hand-coding while doing my MA, but being a little slow on the uptake (perhaps?!) I needed WYSIWYG editors like Dreamweaver in that:
- It could write inefficient, ugly code for me when I didn’t know how to code a page in notepad
- I could then study the code, understand the page and take out all the stuff I didn’t need
Over the years, my coding has been refined, and refined again to the standard it is today - so as a once inexperienced and broke web designer, WYSIWYG editors saved my bacon until I got up to speed!
By Richard Payne on June 8, 2006 5:51 am
Handcoding is a sign of a true programmer. If you can’t handcode then how can you tweak or fix what WYSIWYG screws up. And if you never handcode, you are not a programmer unless you handcode. That is a definition of a programmer: someone who writes code… Just my opinion.
By Maria on June 8, 2006 7:16 am
[…] Paul Scrivers pÃ¥ Wisdump tycker att man skall koda sina webbsidor för hand istället för att använda nÃ¥gon av de grafiska verktyg som finns. Att han är grundare av bloggnätverket 9rules, som mestadels innehÃ¥ller bloggar relaterade till webbdesign lägger tyngd bakom hans ord: Every artist has a story behind their painting. They can tell you that every stroke has a purpose. Nothing is ever done just for the sake of doing it. When you hand code your pages every item you add is added for a purpose. You take a greater sense in what you are doing and have a greater understanding of your own pages. Your work should be your own and if you do not understand it then it never becomes your own. […]
By Addendum » Blog Archive » Distraherad av teknik on August 15, 2006 4:15 am
with regard to methods of producing typography works, be they writen by hand (with a pen) or typed into a machine, I would argue that providing the author actually *wants* to produce a quality document, that a word processor will actually have the most benificial impact on quality
this is only speaking from my own experience, but the ability to change even the tiny detail of a document easilly and quickly makes it worth-while.
That is, rewording a sentense doesn’t involve re-writing or re-typing (in the case of typewriters) the entire page, only to find another mistake, or area for improvement
This approch also allows changes to be easilly made at some point in the future, when the author might have new ideas (eg, say they’re writing a novel, are half-way through and get stuck. Later they come back with a different idea for the plot, and are able to change a few pages to move the plot in the new direction)
This effect is much more profound when wanting to make small changes to many pages (on paper you, of course, would have to rewrite each page in question)
Good usability design is always part of the process of a true professional, as is constant revision of what has been produced so far. To that end, I at least go through many revisions of a text before i consider it “finished”.
Word processing allows this to happen much quicker, and far more easilly.
So from my point of view, with regard to improved typography and usability of content, word processing is a good thing, which improves the quality of text which would otherwise suffer if trully done “by hand” directly on paper.
By Lee Carré on November 9, 2006 1:32 am
I am with you… i do all my own coding as a hand-coder and have been using this term for some time now. You can view examples of my hand coding at http://www.imenuhq.com or http://www.hookuphq.com
Eric
By Eric on December 5, 2006 9:39 am
[…] To hand code or not? That is the question. I error on the side of hand-coding. I participated in this debate back in 2005 and ran across the article again and its worth posting. More after the jump. To hand-code or not? […]
By Does It Matter | You are not special. You are not beautiful or unique snowflakes. We are the same decaying orgainc matter as everone else. » The old debate. on December 12, 2006 10:26 pm
Handcode or not,the question is are you gonna get the job done or not,in the end its not about the technique so stop boosting your egoes,we all wanna get it done,my boss does not care cause i did the Photoshop and Dreamweaver course and i’ve designed more than 24 website and im still just 20,i do not code my sites from but that does not mean im not familiar with or ,nuff said………..
By Zion on December 20, 2007 8:41 pm
I find WYSIWY(M)G editors helpful in keeping my codebase, libraries and assets organized. For me, the first thing I do when using an editing application is to adjust the code formatting settings. The design view rarely matches what you’re going to see on a live browser (Expression Web really sucks in this regard), but I will take quick glances from time to time - mostly to navigate to places in the code.
Learning to build pages with WYSIWY(M)G before learning to hand code is like learning to use a calculator before learning arithmetic first.
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