Re: Hand-coding all the way, or...?

I remember what my old Chief told back in my Navy days, "There's never time
to do it right, but always time to do it over." The clean, bug free, code
you get from hand coding is worth any time that may be saved using a buggy
WYSIWYG editor. Also, the time needed to fix the code is usually more then
the time saved using the WYSIWYG editor.

Edward Springer
----- Original Message -----
From: "Maya Rushing Walker" <maya(at)rushingwalker.com>
To: <hwg-basics(at)hwg.org>
Sent: Monday, November 20, 2000 7:55 AM
Subject: Hand-coding all the way, or...?


> Martin, I'm sure you're right.  I learned HTML but then switched to a
> WYSIWYG.  It's terrific for design purposes, but it is hard to go in and
> tinker with the code--my program simply won't allow it, and it also messes
> up code that I write separately and try to "import."  I am reverting to
> hand-coding (via HomeSite) but I am wondering...for purposes of speed,
don't
> all you hand-coders suffer?  And what if you need to go back into hundreds
> of pages and replace something?  Do any of you switch between a WYSIWYG
and
> hand-coding?  I'm a designer/copywriter, not a code guru, so doing all the
> HTML by myself is really not a lot of fun for me!  What about databasing?
> Will I be stuck writing everything myself?  Aaaack!  I really don't know
any
> of the scripting languages well, just enough so I can "tinker."
>
> Cheers, Maya
> -----Original Message-----
> Unfortunately, he's right. There is no such thing as a good WYSIWYG(What
You
> See Is What You Get) html editor. They always, for some reason, produce
> sloppy, ugly code that, even if it works well such as DreamWeaver pages,
is
> hell to try and go in and manually change something. HTML editors are a
> useful resource, but they just can't replace knowing HTML, they merely
> supplement it.
>
> Personally, I'd suggest picking up a good html book, such as Peachpit
Press'
> HTML 4.0 Visual Quickstart Guide, or using an online tutorial such as the
> ones at Webmonkey( http://www.hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/ )
>
> I've used three of Peachpit's books(Perl/CGI, Javascript, and Java) and
all
> three were excellent, and I've heard rave reviews of their HTML book.
>
> I also use Webmonkey constantly as a reference source, and I'm currently
> using Thau's Javascript tutorial as a refresher course(taking a break can
be
> hell, sometimes. Forgot just about everything I knew outside of basic HTML
> and some CSS).
>
> Hope this helps.
> --
> Martin McCarthy
> Ninehells Design
> http://www.ninehells.org
>
> Vincent Jacobs
> Clan Gangrel
> Van Helsing Society V:tM LARP
> http://www.vhs-boston.org
>
> Numn Mud
> http://www.faerun.net
> faerun.net:9998
> Not yet public - Looking for builders and coders
>

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