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"It really does not matter how you code your page. WYSIWYG editors are tools like a pencil and paper. They, in themselves, cannot create anything. It comes down to whether or not you care to take the time to a) learn about the program/editor you are using, b) visually check the coding, and c)validating it in lines with W3C."
I am not one to pass judgement on how someone creates a page. But i am reminded of something a politician once told me when we were discussing decisions of the local municipal council. He said:
"Marshall, no one cares. As long at the streets are plowed, the street lights come one, the water flows, and the s**t goes down the pipe, no ones cares what council does."
That being said, does a site really visitor care what method was used to create a page? After all, if the page does what the visitor expects, is how it got there really matter?
Granted, I am a little obsessive-compulsive about my sites and proper html and cross-browser compatibility, but like .xml, .asp, .cgi, perl, whatever, other than the web designer, or coder if you prefer, as long as the site works and provides the necessary information, who truly cares? i know I don't, do you?
WYSIWYG editors have a tendency to add a ridiculous amount of un-needed code. when you remove an element they sometimes put another element around it to remove it rather then removing the tag.
The ugliest code I have seen is done by Dreamweaver. Just look at the source and you will see a cleanly hand written site has nice looking source. good indentations. Comments.
WYSIWYG source is always bloated. And if you aren't using the same WYSIWYG editor to make changes as was used to create the site then it is a huge pain in the @ss.
IMO tidier source is better SEO'd source.
If I were a nit picker.... and I am... I would point out that terribly bloated source can slow down page loads. Someone on dial-up viewing 2 identical sites will actually have slower page load times with a dreamweaver site then something I coded by hand. There is a huge difference to someone viewing a 7kb page vs a 70KB page if the transfer rate is slow.
Another difference I can think of is anyone who is using a screen scraper (seeing impaired browser). A dreamweaver built site would be a nightmare for one of those browsers to crawl. Unless maticulous attention is paid with them in mind when doing it. I think a hand built one would do better even if little to no consideration is given to it.
These things aside as far as your audience goes there is little to no difference, the less tech savvy your audience the less it will matter how it is coded.
I am uber tech savvy and have Firebug enabled all the time and I can tell when I have gone to a poorly designed site right away as Firebug starts spitting out crap. Most people don't care. They are there for some info and they are out.
[edited by: Demaestro at 9:45 pm (utc) on May 9, 2007]
I am uber tech savvy and have Firebug enabled all the time
I agree. I am considerably OC when it comes to browser compatability, but that's me. As for Level AAA access, I do create such pages when necessary, but %95 of my customers don't care. At the very least, I try to meet Level A compliance.
Seems you and I are the only two here.
That being said, does a site really visitor care what method was used to create a page?
Absolutely not, do you? I mean nerd or not, when you visit a website do you look at the content or wonder what CSS is being used to display it? When you read a newspaper are you intrigued by what type of printing press was used to create it. Whan you watch TV are you beside yourself with curiosity wondering that type of cameras the production company used?
I have heard this being discussed several times in the past but the bottom line is that no one cares about this. If the page loads quickly and the content is interesting it matters not a jot how it got on screen.
WYSIWYG source is always bloated.
Wrong.
I prefer clean code too as it helps in maintenance, and I cannot tell you how many people have asked me to clean up their site ...
Go ahead then, why not give us an estimate of how many? I think you may be exaggerating because no one (that is zilch, zero, nada) has ever asked me to do this. I would doubt that anyone who hires someone to build a site and the end result looks and performs like what they required and paid for gives a ****! I have been asked to clean up the design of a site but never the code.
There is a huge difference to someone viewing a 7kb page vs a 70KB page if the transfer rate is slow.
Really? Are you suggesting that Dreamweaver code bloat can cause a tenfold increase in the amount of code? If so you are wrong. Any redundant code that DW creates is almost certain to be completely superflous to the user no matter what transfer rate is available. It is just plain wrong to suggest otherwise.
Unless maticulous attention is paid
Nice Freudian slip ;)
I'll add only this... many people who use WYSIWYG editors can't fix their code. Most people who hand-code can.
Reasons for consistency, such as easy maintainance, and attention to detail maybe do lend themselves to subtleties the users really do appreciate. Similar to the arguements for using XHTML 1.1 <ducks/>
Really? Are you suggesting that Dreamweaver code bloat can cause a tenfold increase in the amount of code? If so you are wrong. Any redundant code that DW creates is almost certain to be completely superflous to the user no matter what transfer rate is available. It is just plain wrong to suggest otherwise.
I am not suggesting it... I am flat out saying it.
Don't forget some people are browsing with PDAs as well. It makes a difference.
Dreamwearver may not be the right example... but do a few pages in M$ word and "save for the web" You will see a bloat unlike anything else. Tenfold would be generous.
You are forgetting how much crap can come out of an HTML page when CSS is leveraged properly. Not to mention how much white space gets put into the files a lot of the times.
Like I said it is a nick-pickers view but it is mine. Go on dial up and start viewing pages that are horribly bloated and you will get frustrated waiting for page loads. Go to sites that load fast and you will say... I like this site.. it loads fast.
[edited by: Demaestro at 2:19 pm (utc) on May 10, 2007]
When was the last time you saw Dreamwearver do dynamic JS to test a browser to dynamically generate CSS definitions based on the browser type/version?
In a world where everyone is on M$ XP/Vista and only use IE7 then it might not matter... but the reality is we have to make concessions for the guy on his old 98 box using a whacky Netscape version. Or the guy on Konquerer and Linux or some old version of Safari on a Mac.
This is something Dreamweaver and others don't consider when generating it's HTML and CSS. So when someone who isn't on the "normal" browser/OS comes to your site if it isn't coded properly it makes a difference. And if you are using a WYSIWYG then trying to change the site so that it will work in all browsers is an exercise in futility.
Then there are all the nice little things we can do with Web 2.0 and XML. I would love to see WYSIWYG editors do proper image preloads.... which makes a difference. Or better yet I would love to see a WYSIWYG do an httpheader request to grab more info at a click of the users mouse that gets new info into the page without reloading it. Again this is something that users notice. Nice Overlays..... data that is hidden in the background and brought into the page by mousing over or clicking something. All these things are nice-ities that people notice and like from a site... these are also things you won't get coding websites with a WYSIWYG editor.
There are new ways of doing things discovered more and more and WYSIWYG editors can't keep up. It is hard for me to keep up and I spend a few hours a day reading release notes from standards orgs... latest browser release notes.. security exploits.. developer white papers... things the WYSIWYG editor is not doing and things that make a difference to the audience.
I am not suggesting it... I am flat out saying it.
Then you are wrong. I use DW on a daily basis and to suggest that it does anything like this is just nonsense I am afraid.
Dreamwearver may not be the right example... but do a few pages in M$ word and "save for the web" You will see a bloat unlike anything else.
It's the example you used to illustrate your point and no one is suggesting that websites be built in MS Word (apart from you that is) ;)
When was the last time you saw Dreamwearver do dynamic JS to test a browser to dynamically generate CSS definitions based on the browser type/version?
What does this have to do with the point in question?
This is something Dreamweaver and others don't consider when generating it's HTML and CSS.
Yes it does. Quite honestly, it sounds like you don't know what current versions of DW can do. Are you sure you have tried it lately? I can set DW to validate pages basically for whatever browsers and versions that I want. I can also produce fully W3C compliant pages using DW.
I would love to see WYSIWYG editors do proper image preloads.... which makes a difference. Or better yet I would love to see a WYSIWYG do an httpheader request to grab more info at a click of the users mouse that gets new info into the page without reloading it. Again this is something that users notice. Nice Overlays..... data that is hidden in the background and brought into the page by mousing over or clicking something. All these things are nice-ities that people notice and like from a site... these are also things you won't get coding websites with a WYSIWYG editor.
All doable in DW.
That being said, does a site really visitor care what method was used to create a page?
No, most won't.
After all, if the page does what the visitor expects, is how it got there really matter?
It doesn't. But it should for the owner of the site. That is what matters. If that visitor left the site due to something wrong that can be tracked back to coding practices, then yes, it all comes back to those who do care how it got there. ;)
WYSIWYG editors have a tendency to add a ridiculous amount of un-needed code.
No, that's not true. The users of those editors are the ones pressing the buttons that are generating the code. I've seen hand coding that is worse than WYSIWYG. :)
As for speed, I heard recently that high speed access has surpassed 51% in the US, but that does not account for the rest of the world, something most of us forget about.
As for cleaning up code, I have five customers who asked me this on an annually basis. They maintain their sites and usually do something to mess it up, so they ask me to clean the code and put in comment tags to they don't make the same mistakes.
I find it ironic though that everyone talks about css and tableless layouts, but yet contributes to a forum that uses tables, uses search engines that use tables, shop on-line at however many sites, all of which use tables, and so on. It sounds like a guy who says he'd only buy an "american made car" not realizing how many components are out-sourced.
How long after W3 makes changes does it take for them to come out with a new one?
Does it do strict?
What does this have to do with the point in question?
Quite a bit since we are talking about if the users of sites care..... If I am using a browser and discover that your site doesn't prepare the code in a manner that works for me then it matters.
I have lots of code that tests a browser before drawing the css for that page and I like it that way. sure maybe only a few people a year come to the site where that code is even executed but for those couple of people a year it works and they will come back. (hopefully) but the chances of them coming back is higher then if images were appearing over top of text or some other annoying thing that can happen.
All doable in DW.
Well then it has come along way... I really didn't know it did httpheader requests, and parsed XML.
To be honest I want to go install it now and try some Ajax implementations. I am surprised to hear it does this.
I still think that testing the browser and OS and doing things differently in some situations is something valuable and by the sounds of it is something that DW doesn't do.
No one addressed the PDA arguments for file sizes but I think it is something someone would care about. Based on what double is saying.. file size isn't an issue with DW... it still may be with some other ones though.
[edited by: Demaestro at 5:48 pm (utc) on May 10, 2007]
but then I suppose most are happy to pay mid range for something that goes, is mass produced [en.wikipedia.org].. but that doesn't necessarily stop them appreciating the beauty of hand craftmanship [astonmartin.com] :)
Using tools that accomplish the end result is fine, yes if you are understander of the mechanics first you might need to relearn how to to do some things in order to use the tools (shortcuts.. just press this button..), but essentially if you know how it should work in the first place learning the tool should be easier.. however the other way around (program first, mechanics later), should you ever need to do that, may be a lot harder!
Suzy
As long as everything is working fine, absolutely not. It's when complex problems arise that they begin caring.
If a mechanic is standing there with your car's hood up, the engine attached to a $50,000 machine for which you're being charged $75/hour, and still says "I don't know, it SHOULD be running" it's no better than a designer who tries to convince you that the problem you see is "not important" because their WYSIWYG program shows no errors.
But in most cases, absolutely not, the client or customer will never see past presentation and only begins to care when problems arise.
hand coder here :-)
does a site really visitor care what method was used to create a page?
all kindding aside, you absolutely right. How the text got there is about as relavant as the price of tea in China
though, I will admit I find myself looking at the source way too much and judging a site base on what I see. But, I'm/we are not a usual visitor
One of the big things I use dreamweaver for is to drop html code in it and see what it looks like in the wysiwyg section. I also found it to be very useful for absolute positioning in CSS. I can drag things around and it generates the numbers for me. Same with tables. Of course now I'm finding that I don't use either any more.
Do non-tech visitors even know that source code exists?
They were like "#*$! is that?"
Most people do not know that a web page is made up of source code, they seem to see it just like a page in a magazine. That's probably why so many people make their first website one gigantic JPEG... ;)
Do non-tech visitors even know that source code exists?
Most non-tech people I know are very surprised when I show them the source code. After asking how I know where the pictures will show up, their next question is usually along the lines of "isn't it risky having a website where just anyone can come along and see your code?" ;)
The tool is irrelevant. It's just a tool. Any tool in the wrong hands can produce a bad job and be detrimental to the user experience.
You can't blame DW if you use it to build something that creates a bad user experience. That's your fault.
Regarding your second point, I suspect that most webmasters who write their code in vi will have had to learn HTML to a level at which they are automatically in the 'know their stuff' category; as compared with dreamweaver which allows you to create some form of webpage in minutes even if you've never done anything of the kind before. That makes it much more likely that the dreamweaver-authored page will be made by someone who doesn't know their stuff, and more likely that the dreamweaver-authored page will suffer from the complaints listed in the posts above - not dreamweaver's fault but a direct consequence of lowering the barrier for entry to practically zero.
more likely that the dreamweaver-authored page will be made by someone who doesn't know their stuff
That's an interesting point, but I'm not sure I can agree (although I know where you're coming from).
"know their stuff" means knowing HTML? Knowing HTML is one thing, but what about knowing how to choose colours or how to design an intuitive navigation system?
Are those design aspects less important than knowing how to code HTML? I would say it's the other way around.
A bad, counter-intuitive navigation system can destroy user experience far more easily than a slow page load time. I looked recently at a set of pages that actually were produced in notepad by an HTML "guru". But he didn't understand usability and decent NAV structure. The pages were dreadful from a user perspective.
If you gave a copy of DreamWeaver to a half-decent designer, and a copy of Vi to a half-decent HTML coder, who do you think would produce the better page, from the users point of view?
I don't think there's a straightforward answer to that question, could go either way. Whichever way it went, whoever produced the worst page out of the two couldn't blame the tool that he used. It would be his fault for doing a bad job.
TJ
People often make the mistake of equating HTML coding with web design. Web design includes graphic design, SEO, copywriting, navigation, layout, etc.
Add to the above list as you will but never make the mistake of thinking that you are good web designer becaue you know how to write HTML. This is just a very small part of the equation.
I started building websites six years ago before I knew anything about hand coding and while I now know a bit about HTML I still use DW because it makes me efficient. Apart from one or two exceptions all of my first websites still exist in various forms. All of my clients have been very happy at what I have provided, which is websites that work for them.
I can and do go in and make manual changes to the code when I need to but I would not consider doing the whole site in a hand editor because it would make me slow and inefficient.
