Night
in
Tucson

Flower
of the
Month

Phase
of the
Moon

home

• design vs develop
• hand coding
• web standards
• my tools
• code of ethics
• pricing policy
• ala carte plan

Hand coding for the web means that a human rather than a computer writes all the programming code necessary to make a website work. In my opinion, hand coding is preferable in nearly every situation because:

1. A web designer who relies on computer-generated code does not usually understand the code, hence cannot fix the code when it breaks and cannot modify the code to change or extend its functionality.
2. Computer generated code is bloatware. It contains way more code than is necessary because it's a one-size-fits-all proposition.
3. WYSIWYG = "What You See Is What You Get"WYSIWYG editors (Dreamweaver, Frontpage, etc.) can seem faster than hand coding IF by some miracle the results are just what you expected on the first go and never need any modification. Trying to "fix" the problems created by machine generated code can be very time-consuming, especially if you're not an experienced programmer. Khoi Vinh, the design director for the NY Times recently stated: "It's our preference to use a text editor, like HomeSite, TextPad or TextMate, to 'hand code' everything, rather than to use a wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) HTML and CSS authoring program, like Dreamweaver. We just find it yields better and faster results."
4. Hand coding can take you anywhere you want to go (within the realm of the possible, of course). You can be creative and break new ground. No limits!

Request a Quote