justsomeguy Posted September 10, 2007 Share Posted September 10, 2007 I think because poeple are trying to pay the bills they just can't be bothered to go through learning this stuff. They just want to design the site and collect the money and go.That's fairly naive. You can't expect to be hired at a garage fixing cars if you're not going to "be bothered" to learn how to fix a car. You can't expect to be hired as a carpenter if you're not going to "be bothered" to learn how to build a weight-bearing structure or use a saw. Why do you think that people can earn a living building web pages if they don't know how to read or write HTML code? It's the same thing. If all it took was a program to create a good web site, people wouldn't pay web designers at all, they would just do it themselves. Creating a good, functional website (keyword is functional) requires a good understanding of the way that technologies like HTML, CSS, and Javascript work and how they interact with the user and each other. This isn't like creating a Word processing document where you can just create a new file and start typing the content, this is programming where you need to understand the underlying technologies and how they work, and you can't get that understanding from pointing and clicking through Frontpage or Dreamweaver. Professional web developers just don't use tools like Dreamweaver to create their layouts, professionals have an understanding in their mind about how they want the site to look and act, and they open a text editor and just type the code that makes it happen. It is much faster for me, and I expect several others as well, to just type the code myself the way I want it to look instead of poking around a program looking for buttons or tools that I need. If I have a design in my head, I open a text editor and put it on the screen, that's the fastest way.If people are just trying to "pay the bills" or "collect the money and go", they should stick to unskilled labor like mowing lawns, flipping burgers, or digging ditches. Creating web sites is skilled labor, and if you don't have the necessary marketable skills you can't expect to make money doing it. That's pretty much the bottom line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mint Posted September 11, 2007 Author Share Posted September 11, 2007 That's fairly naive. You can't expect to be hired at a garage fixing cars if you're not going to "be bothered" to learn how to fix a car. You can't expect to be hired as a carpenter if you're not going to "be bothered" to learn how to build a weight-bearing structure or use a saw. Why do you think that people can earn a living building web pages if they don't know how to read or write HTML code? It's the same thing. If all it took was a program to create a good web site, people wouldn't pay web designers at all, they would just do it themselves. Creating a good, functional website (keyword is functional) requires a good understanding of the way that technologies like HTML, CSS, and Javascript work and how they interact with the user and each other. This isn't like creating a Word processing document where you can just create a new file and start typing the content, this is programming where you need to understand the underlying technologies and how they work, and you can't get that understanding from pointing and clicking through Frontpage or Dreamweaver. Professional web developers just don't use tools like Dreamweaver to create their layouts, professionals have an understanding in their mind about how they want the site to look and act, and they open a text editor and just type the code that makes it happen. It is much faster for me, and I expect several others as well, to just type the code myself the way I want it to look instead of poking around a program looking for buttons or tools that I need. If I have a design in my head, I open a text editor and put it on the screen, that's the fastest way.If people are just trying to "pay the bills" or "collect the money and go", they should stick to unskilled labor like mowing lawns, flipping burgers, or digging ditches. Creating web sites is skilled labor, and if you don't have the necessary marketable skills you can't expect to make money doing it. That's pretty much the bottom line.Wow.....can't argue with this! point taken. I'm handing coding I 'm going to try a mini site this week armed with my html and css skills. Anyone who wants for be a private tutor is most welcomed. I'll mention them when I'm famous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edjay Posted October 9, 2007 Share Posted October 9, 2007 An excellent thread for the beginner to follow. Much appreciated everyone! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonas Posted October 9, 2007 Share Posted October 9, 2007 I'll mention them when I'm famous.Famous for making websites? I can't think of any case of that happening to anyone. :)The best tip I can give you though is to start off small to get a feeling of how html and css works. Try making a small site with just a few pages to get the links between pages to work and see what you can do with layouts. Make the site about something personal, like a hobby or something you like (have a dog or something maybe?) so that you'll keep interest while trying to figure out the harder stuff of handcoding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synook Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 Famous for making websites? I can't think of any case of that happening to anyone.What about Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google? Many people know them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonas Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 What about Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google? Many people know them.Yeah, I knew someone was going to bring up google, youtube or other such site. They didn't just make corporate websites though, they made a business. There's really not much special about the website google.com itself. At least not the front-end. It's simple, functional, and that's typically what works. Also, they didn't make it what it is today alone, did they? As of today they have close to 14,000 full-time employees. It's not just a search engine anymore, it's video, maps, email, etc.So when people say Larry Page and Sergey Brin are famous for founding google, it's famous for founding "Google", the brandname corporation.I don't think anyone has become famous for making websites for others... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spoonraker Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 I use 100% strictly hand coding. The things I actually find useful in a program are color coding, line numbering, and smart tabbing (when you are tabbed in and hit enter you are still tabbed in). Really that's about it.There are plenty of programs out there that have all these features, and cost nothing.A program like Dreamweaver will, even in code view, insert code that you didn't type. When you open a "blank" document in Dreamweaver, it's not actually blank, and unless you disable a ton of stuff it will constantly be irritating you by trying to automatically finish your code, giving you hints, adding slashes, and just being a nuisance in general.Plus as other have said, editors that code for you really don't save that much time and definitely don't prevent errors, most of they time they cause them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SmokingMan Posted October 13, 2007 Share Posted October 13, 2007 I'll have to ditto hand coding. I used to use FrontPage just for an ftp client. But I soon found HTML-Kit which I find very useful. It has plug-ins to help automate some of the coding, but it's still all done by hand. It also has ftp capabilities so you can upload your pages and is a free download. It's always better to do something right from the start without the easy shortcuts offered by programs such as FrontPage. You know it's done right and it's easier for someone to maintain down the road if you are no longer doing it. Of course that's as long as they're able to read code and haven't relied on FrontPage to do their coding Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spoonraker Posted October 15, 2007 Share Posted October 15, 2007 I use dreamweaver at work, but only because it was already installed and I don't know another text editor available for Mac that has smart tabbing, color coding, and a built in FTP client. Anybody have any links to one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonas Posted October 15, 2007 Share Posted October 15, 2007 I use dreamweaver at work, but only because it was already installed and I don't know another text editor available for Mac that has smart tabbing, color coding, and a built in FTP client. Anybody have any links to one?Check this thread:http://w3schools.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=760 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.