The_Magistrate
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I've been seeing a lot of posts recently about people's newest "template." I put quotes around template, because they may call them a template, but they really aren't. Putting a few gradient filled boxes into a Photoshop image and slicing it does NOT make it a template. Designing a website takes time, effort and thought. Developing good websites means understanding exactly what is happening behind the scenes.
Using a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editor, such as Microsoft FrontPage, Macrodobe Dreamweaver, Adobe Photoshop is not considered web development. These programs create horribly structured and marked up code. Imagine creating a website is like scoring a goal in football (soccer). Making a website with WYSIWYG editor is like a 5 year old scoring a goal. Yeah, he scored, but it wasn't very impressive, and he didn't know what he was doing; he just knew he had to get the ball in the goal. Creating your own website by hand is like Pele scoring. It is a beautiful work of art. Everything about the goal and the moves leading up to it are prefect and impecably planned.
I know some people just don't care enough to want to learn how to make their own websites. I can understand that. I don't have the want/time to learn how to do three dimensional calculus. If you don't want to learn how to develop websites, don't try to develop websites. It's as simple as that. When someone asks for an opinion about their first website they make in a WYSIWYG editor, I'm gonna tell them it's pretty good. That way, they might think about learning more about web development.
But there comes a point where WYSIWYG editors stop serving a purpose. And that point is when someone tries to make a website for someone else. They then think of themselves as a "Web Developer" and think that what they're doing is what everyone else is doing. They couldn't be further from the truth. Real web developers don't need expensive software to make websites. All they need is a web browser and a text editor. Doesn't matter what platform, they'll just need those two things.
The reason why real developers need fewer tools is because they understand how websites work. They get down to the nitty-gritty and sludge through the code. They hand pick each tag, element and style that goes into that site. There isn't a part of their code that they don't know everything about. Every web developer slaves over his/her site for hours on end, trying to make it perfect in every possible way.
To learn how to become a true web developer, you must learn how websites work. There are essentially two parts to a website, the content and the presentation. The content is the words and links on a page. The presentation is the definition of how the content is displayed. For example:
The Quick Brown Fox Jumped Over The Lazy Dog
The content of that line are the words: the, quick, brown, fox, jumped, over, lazy and dog. The style is the fact that it is bold. The idea is that those words (the content) can be presented in many different ways (i.e. not bold and green or really big and red....) The aim of modern web development is to separate content from presentation. That is where HTML(HyperText Markup Language) and CSS(Cascading StyleSheets) are at their best.
Way-back-when, when it was common practice to keep content and presentation together, web developers used HTML to style their documents, using tags like FONT, or B, or I. These tags allow the developer to change the style of the content within that tag. The problem is, what if you want to change the style of all 500 FONT tags on your website? Are you going to edit them all? I didn't think so. That's where CSS comes in. CSS allows you to define the style of a whole bunch of pages on a site from one common document. So when you change that one CSS document, all the pages on your site reflect that change.
One of the benefits to using CSS is the ability to create different presentations or styles for the same content. For example, say visitor A to your site likes black text on a white background. And visitor B like white text on a black background. Using CSS you can allow your visitors to choose which way they want your site to be displayed. When people like your site, the tend to return.... Also, ever see anyone visit a website on their cell phone? Notice how the information on that website is perfectly formatted to fit that screen? That is done using CSS. Why keep two copies of all the files on your website, one for browsers, one for cell phones; when you can keep one copy, but create two styles?
There are also many more practicle benefits to using HTML and CSS on your website, but I won't go into them right now. Check the links for resources about why CSS is a good thing.
Getting back to WYSIWYG editors, too often, they do not properly separate content from presentation. This makes for very bad design. What may look good in one browser, make not even show up in another because the structure is so poor. All too often, WYSIWYG editors violate the cardinal rule of web development.
Don't use tables to layout your content
I cannot stress this enough. Tables are used for tabular data, like data spreadsheets. Not for structuring websites. Using tables to organize your website content is probably the next worse thing to using a WYSIWYG editor for making your website. They are both frowned upon.
I'm sure I'll think of something else that should be mentioned in this thread, but I'll start with this. If anyone has anything to add, please post responses and include your comments.
Now, I leave you with links to sites I find very helpful when I'm developing for myself.
If you read nothing else, read this: http://www.hotdesign.com/seybold/
Look at this one first (contains hundreds of links): http://www.andybudd.com/links/cssweb_standards/index.php http://www.alistapart.com http://www.csszengarden.com http://www.webstandards.org/ http://css.maxdesign.com.au/ http://opensourcetemplates.org/ http://www.tjkdesign.com/ http://www.sitepoint.com/print/essentials-modern-web-design
Using a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editor, such as Microsoft FrontPage, Macrodobe Dreamweaver, Adobe Photoshop is not considered web development. These programs create horribly structured and marked up code. Imagine creating a website is like scoring a goal in football (soccer). Making a website with WYSIWYG editor is like a 5 year old scoring a goal. Yeah, he scored, but it wasn't very impressive, and he didn't know what he was doing; he just knew he had to get the ball in the goal. Creating your own website by hand is like Pele scoring. It is a beautiful work of art. Everything about the goal and the moves leading up to it are prefect and impecably planned.
I know some people just don't care enough to want to learn how to make their own websites. I can understand that. I don't have the want/time to learn how to do three dimensional calculus. If you don't want to learn how to develop websites, don't try to develop websites. It's as simple as that. When someone asks for an opinion about their first website they make in a WYSIWYG editor, I'm gonna tell them it's pretty good. That way, they might think about learning more about web development.
But there comes a point where WYSIWYG editors stop serving a purpose. And that point is when someone tries to make a website for someone else. They then think of themselves as a "Web Developer" and think that what they're doing is what everyone else is doing. They couldn't be further from the truth. Real web developers don't need expensive software to make websites. All they need is a web browser and a text editor. Doesn't matter what platform, they'll just need those two things.
The reason why real developers need fewer tools is because they understand how websites work. They get down to the nitty-gritty and sludge through the code. They hand pick each tag, element and style that goes into that site. There isn't a part of their code that they don't know everything about. Every web developer slaves over his/her site for hours on end, trying to make it perfect in every possible way.
To learn how to become a true web developer, you must learn how websites work. There are essentially two parts to a website, the content and the presentation. The content is the words and links on a page. The presentation is the definition of how the content is displayed. For example:
The Quick Brown Fox Jumped Over The Lazy Dog
The content of that line are the words: the, quick, brown, fox, jumped, over, lazy and dog. The style is the fact that it is bold. The idea is that those words (the content) can be presented in many different ways (i.e. not bold and green or really big and red....) The aim of modern web development is to separate content from presentation. That is where HTML(HyperText Markup Language) and CSS(Cascading StyleSheets) are at their best.
Way-back-when, when it was common practice to keep content and presentation together, web developers used HTML to style their documents, using tags like FONT, or B, or I. These tags allow the developer to change the style of the content within that tag. The problem is, what if you want to change the style of all 500 FONT tags on your website? Are you going to edit them all? I didn't think so. That's where CSS comes in. CSS allows you to define the style of a whole bunch of pages on a site from one common document. So when you change that one CSS document, all the pages on your site reflect that change.
One of the benefits to using CSS is the ability to create different presentations or styles for the same content. For example, say visitor A to your site likes black text on a white background. And visitor B like white text on a black background. Using CSS you can allow your visitors to choose which way they want your site to be displayed. When people like your site, the tend to return.... Also, ever see anyone visit a website on their cell phone? Notice how the information on that website is perfectly formatted to fit that screen? That is done using CSS. Why keep two copies of all the files on your website, one for browsers, one for cell phones; when you can keep one copy, but create two styles?
There are also many more practicle benefits to using HTML and CSS on your website, but I won't go into them right now. Check the links for resources about why CSS is a good thing.
Getting back to WYSIWYG editors, too often, they do not properly separate content from presentation. This makes for very bad design. What may look good in one browser, make not even show up in another because the structure is so poor. All too often, WYSIWYG editors violate the cardinal rule of web development.
Don't use tables to layout your content
I cannot stress this enough. Tables are used for tabular data, like data spreadsheets. Not for structuring websites. Using tables to organize your website content is probably the next worse thing to using a WYSIWYG editor for making your website. They are both frowned upon.
I'm sure I'll think of something else that should be mentioned in this thread, but I'll start with this. If anyone has anything to add, please post responses and include your comments.
Now, I leave you with links to sites I find very helpful when I'm developing for myself.
If you read nothing else, read this: http://www.hotdesign.com/seybold/
Look at this one first (contains hundreds of links): http://www.andybudd.com/links/cssweb_standards/index.php http://www.alistapart.com http://www.csszengarden.com http://www.webstandards.org/ http://css.maxdesign.com.au/ http://opensourcetemplates.org/ http://www.tjkdesign.com/ http://www.sitepoint.com/print/essentials-modern-web-design