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Subject:Re: The Real Offense From:Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- jci -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 9 Mar 2000 10:16:58 -0600
>Every student I know who took a web
>design class has the idea in their heads that only hand-coded HTML will
do,
>even though I can bang out a page in PageMill, refine it by hand, and be
>done in one-tenth the time.
Dan Shafer touched on that in one of his columns for Builder.com. He viewed
the history of HTML tools as similar to that of programming tools. In the
beginning there was machine coding. Then came higher-level languages which
were easier to write, but which took longer to execute.
As the state of those tools improved, programmers switched from hand-coding
at the machine level to coding in a high-level language, and then
hand-optimizing the result.
As the state of compiler design improved, the opportunities for
hand-optimization became more infrequent, until it faded from view for all
but the most intensive tasks.
He figures we're in the intermediate stage now with HTML: he builds with a
WYSIWYG tool (Dreamweaver, as I recall) then massages the resulting HTML
until satisfied.
I do it myself, when the design is nearly achievable in a wysiwyg tool.
Sometimes the design is too far away from the capabilities of the tool,
though, and then building from scratch by hand is simpler.
Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 224
Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- Com
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In God we trust; all others must provide data.
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Opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.
If JCI had an opinion on this, they'd hire someone else to deliver it.
