WYSIWIG vs Hand-Coding?

Whats excellent for developing a website? Should one use a WYSIWIG software e.g. Dreamweaver, Microsoft Expression Web etc or code by hand.

What are the Advantages/Disadvantages of both.

Sorry if this question had been asked a lot of times, though I searched but didn't find suitable results.

 

Haha... We've just been arguing this in another topic.

But to start it all again -

Learn to code by hand. Learn as much as you can. It will save you hours and hours in problem solving time in the future, give you a better grounding for what can and can't be done (and how), help you understand when and where things like PHP can fit in and how it would work (whether you do it yourself or not), and generally set you on a better path.

WYSIWYG programs are great, but they aren't a substitute. At almost every agency I've worked for, without exception, the people making the actual sites - cutting up the designs the designers send over - are using some kind of a text editor or dreamweaver in the code view mode. Sure dreamweaver can help you draw the basics out, but when you want to add PHP, or anything dynamic it's not going to work. It may speed you up slightly, but even that I'm not sure of.


Saying that, WYSIWYG programs are a good way to lay stuff out and then examine the code. See what they've done and how they've done it, particularly if you can't figure out how to do it by hand. But don't rely on them. Just read as much as you can, look at the code on other people's websites, download other people's websites, learn from them, butcher them, try stuff out yourself, experiment - the more you do, the better you get.

 

Hello,
I perfer things like Dreamweaver it allow you to do both Hand Code and use the WYSIWYG features. Also, it is best to learn to hand code because you will run into it all over the place, as it is good with implemening CSS into designs.

I perfer to do Dreamweaver, but I would not be anywhere that I am today if I didnt know the HTML code and know how to hand code things.

Also, when it comes to looking for mistakes it is good to know how to hand code

 

I have never used WYSIWYG ever in my life. However, I never develop a website without Dreamweaver. That's because I love Dreamweaver's code highlighting features, plus how it allows you to set up local sites and test them, save code snippets, and tons of other features.

Dreamweaver is more than just a WYSIWYG editor, it's a whole web development software. I use it to it's full potential, no drag-and-drop for me. And that's definitely the best way to go for web design / development.

 

Most WYSIWYG simply add tons of junk to the code and the more code your page has the slow loading time.

Frontpage and Dreamweaver are specialists in nosense useless code such as adding font size and family to an image tag, just to name a few of the junk you will find on page coded with those applications.

I prefer hard coding and my favorite editor is Araneae in association with Metapad

www.araneae.com - www.liquidninja.com/metapad

 

I tried to learn coding by hand long time ago and it rally paid of.
Even though using WYSIWYG editor is darn easy to built a site, learn by hand from scratch can make your site looks more attractive and fell interactive. WYSIWYG has limitations, you can't go beyond your imagination with it.
Do you think site's like DIGG, FaceBook or eBay use software to built the site!
Personally i use both

 

WYSIWYG is more easier than hand coding. This is the main reason.

 

WYSIWYG is easier but there are some major disadvantages. Mainly bloated junk code (sometimes extremely bloated code) which often means inaccessible website.

If you learn how to properly code by hand, you will be abe to code very fast. So argument that coding in the WYSIWYG application is faster stands on water. Personally, I can code a basic website (accessible, minimal elegant code, valid and standards compliant, cross-browser compatible, speed optimized and reasonably formatted) in a few minutes - about the same as in Dreamweaver with one difference - code from the Dreamweaver will be totally useless junk.

Professional webdevelopers and designers all code by hand - they have good reasons for that

 

Use UltraEdit - all the codehighlighting and none of the wysiwyg.

 

Well that's easy.

Do you want clean, semantic HTML and CSS; or do you want something that looks like its been vomitted, put through a blender and then been sprinkled with trash from the dump?

 

wysiwyg editors are good if you're a one time designer, looking to make a simple web design for the first time, quickly.

text-based editors are my choice as they prepare you for future projects such as wordpress, joomla templates etc.

Basically, visual editors are best for no-so-serious web-designers and text editors are best for long term serious designers.

 

learn to code by hand..if you must view your work..just open your html page in your favorite browser..simple..

notepad++ is one of the best html editors ever...another one is First Page 2000...
I dumped Dreamweaver long ago, because a: it's a memory hog, and b: it's bloated code sucks big time

 

To make the best of sites you need a good knowledge of both. I use dreamweaver but also write code in CSS, XHTML, PHP and Javascript.

 

Why don't you just go back and optimize the code? It's so much quicker and there's less chance of bugs.

 

Designing through code will really be helpful in your future.. once you learned the coding you will easily make the difference in WYSWYG and in hand code.. Then it will be time saving for you to design by code rather than the WYSWYG softwares like dreamwever.. It will also help you to learn how to make a design perfectly for cross browser platform.

 

even though it's a memory hog, fdreamweaver is an excellent text based editor and it does make a lot of stuff easier when it comes to forms and stuff. Good for beginners

 

hahaha... kidding, right?

 

Learn the basics by hand.

Then try a WYISWYG.

When you're comfortable, ditch it for a text editor.