I ran across this blog post that disparages WYSIWYG web tools generally, and SiteGrinder specifically. I replied in the comments, but apparently my comment has not been approved. I wouldn’t mind as much if the person writing the post had actually tried SiteGrinder and wrote from experience, but sadly, and typically, that was not the case. He lists several rookie mistakes and shortcomings that he presumes it makes…except it doesn’t actually make those mistakes.
It is frustrating. We encounter this sort of prejudice every day. Like too many he makes the blanket assumption that a WYSIWYG tool that generates code must, a priori, produce worse code than coding by hand. Many people seem to take this as fact. But it isn’t. It isn’t a fair, specific, or tested, comparison at all. What tool and what coder? For what design? He has taken the liberty to name a tool (SiteGrinder) but which programmer exactly is it competing against? Him? Because while SiteGrinder may not be the best of the best of the best, it definitely produces better code that a lot of people including many so-called professional developers. Also, it is safe to say that for some designs that are squarely within the set of things that SiteGrinder does that when it is used properly, it will actually be difficult for a hand coder to do as good of a job. And certainly impossible to convert that Photoshop design in the same amount of time.
I’m not saying that SiteGrinder is better than any given person coding by hand on any given design. Certainly not. That would be the same mistake the author of the article makes in the reverse direction. But show me the design, show me the coder and then we’ll talk.
I am so tired of uninformed yahoos spouting off the line that “all wysiwyg tools produce bad code” without them actually having tested them. When I argue about this I can’t argue for or against SiteGrinder, which actually exists, but instead have to argue against the imaginary tool said yahoo creates in their mind. Fortunately for our users we have more imagination and are more resourceful than our detractors.
For example, the aforementioned author mentioned “image slice model”, “lack of downloadable web fonts”, and not using CSS3 equivalents (like CSS3 round corners and shadows). He mentions these because, presumably, if he made an automatic Photoshop web tool those are the limitations his tool would have. But our tool wasn’t written by him. He was wrong on all three counts when it comes to SiteGrinder. Had he downloaded and tried it he might know that. He probably also overlooked the heavy interactivity like smooth scrolling links, accordions, animations, plus the integration with Google Docs, and more. There are definitely improvements that can be made, but the team is working on them. Continuing the advance of good SEO, semantic markup, responsive design and mobile support are all priorities.
What is strange is that these supposed programmers that are so hasty to condemn WYSIWYG tools don’t actually seem to know what a computer is capable of. This author specifically illustrates the superiority of hand coding by pointing to the the yslow.org tool and its best practices list. But that list is just a list of optimizations. He may not realize it, but as a programmer I realize immediately that he has sunk his own argument. That list of cold measurable optimizations is exactly the sort of thing that computers are much better at figuring out than humans. Got to pack some spheres into a space or figure out the shortest route for a traveling salesman? Yes, those are tricky problems, even for a computer, but if for any non-trivial set of spheres or cities if you think you are going to figure it out better than a computer you are a fool. Do not kid yourself about this. If that list were a high enough priority then I guarantee that Muse or SiteGrinder could be made to always generate websites that would outperform any hand-coded site of the same design and same design parameters when measured against that yslow.org table. (Note the stress on the two designs being the same, apples vs apples. And I mean, obviously, designs that are within reach of these programs. No one is writing Facebook with SiteGrinder)
Ultimately, the only thing left standing is the benign observation that SiteGrinder and tools like it are used to make brochure-ware sites and the groundbreaking new stuff on the web won’t come from there. No argument from me there (except SG sites are more interactive than he is imagining/portraying). But, so what? Not every site is Facebook. To me, personally, it is upsetting that anyone should think that something as simple as a basic web site must be hand coded. Why? I have heard no explanation. Why shouldn’t someone with good design skills be able to make a straightforward site without having to learn to code? And where are all these coders that don’t have anything better to do with their time? Trust me, I’m a coder and you couldn’t pay me to spend my time redoing by hand in code what someone else has already done in Photoshop. Now that is a waste of resources.
Right on, right on!
First of all, I will state from the beginning that I love (for the most part) creating websites with SiteGrinder. It certainly does save me a lot of time. I will also go on record as saying that SiteGrinder generated code (again, for the most part) is quite good. However, SiteGrinder does do a few things that I wish it could do better. It does tend to produce a website that, when all things are considered, is a bit chunkier than one that would have been coded by hand. And this doesn’t always deal with the “code” per se, but with how SiteGrinder works (without a little extra help from the end-user). Over all, I find that a SiteGrinder created website ends up with a lot more folders and a lot more CSS/script files than if I had coded it all by hand. Even so, I am not sure that I care. Why?
Code optimization might have been massively important back in the days of dialing up the internet on a 28.8 or 56.6 modem, but those days are long gone. A large number of people are on high speed cable or at least DSL. A small code tweak here or there is not going to make any real difference in speed boost in such cases. At least it’s not going to have the impact that it might have had 10 or 15 years ago. If a website could be made 50k smaller back then, that was massive! Today? Meh! And we are not usually talking about 50k, but a few bytes here and there.
For the time that SiteGrinder saves me, I’ll accept any slight bloating in the code/files/folder structure. Thank you.
*PS – You might want to read through your blog post. There are numerous typos in it.
I checked it before posting and I still don’t see any misspellings . Did I mis-punctuate something?
i corrected WYSIWYG which was wrong in two places.
“This author specifically illustrates the superiority of hand coding by pointing to the the yslow.org tool and its best practices list.”
That’s in the sixth paragraph. There were a couple of grammatical errors and a few other things. Overall, this former English teacher would not have marked you down too much for it.
If you would like help with editing your regular articles, blog posts, correspondence and other texts, please contact me. It’s what I do. I’ve seen such a need for it in the general web world, and I’m very good at it.
Best,
Bette
Why shouldn’t someone with good design skills be able to make a straightforward site without having to learn to code? Good question.
Far be it from me to weigh in here. I just saw an opportunity .I think for most of us on the outside the question remains: “does it do what we want and how can we tell before we buy it?” I am not a programmer. I have built a website in Photoshop with slices and DW (no code/no CSS). That was five years ago and it would not open in Explorer. Surprise! I use WordPress themes (.org and .com) these days because it is what I can do quickly. Still have not cracked CODE. I am a designer, a true code dummy. I might try again to build my own site with PSd and DW . I want to build a site to accept sliders, accordions, animations, and other inter activities. I create narratives and I want my site to work for that. I played with Muse and found it lacking in innovation but I emphasize the word”play”. I tried Site Grinder and found it pretty fortress like. I have no idea if the code is good. I do not want to spend hundreds of dollars and many hours building to find out it will not do what I want or be able to teach me to do what I want. I am not against working hard but I hate dead ends. Thanks.
these guys have the same issues most designers take when they see a kid with a bootleg copy of photoshop, online do-it-yourself designers, or some know-it-all that thinks they can design everything with Microsoft products LOL and that’s being cut out with usually an inferior and/or hideous end result LOL
unfortunately ppl will misuse design tools no matter what the medium thats just the sad truth but sitegrinder has its place & when used smartly it’s a great product!
We enjoy using SG, he is just a silly person who dont think or tried things before write….
Lets continue growing and enjoying SG all together!
I read the other persons article and the thing that got me is how he kept referring to Sitegrinder like it was an actual person that was trespassing on his turf . He forgets that it took very skilled programmers, coders and designers to develop Sitegrinder in the first place. People that stand by what they have created and know very well the pros and cons of web development. Obviously if hand coding was the only way to go the team behind Sitegrinder would probably have the better judgement to make that call before they spend a lot of time and recourses to create and market a software like Sitegrinder.
Its just one persons half asses opinion on what makes a ‘good’ website. This sort of thing does not surprise me. You see it all over the internet about everything. Everyone is a critic. I am not sure why a software he has never used before bothers him so much. Hmm. Must have been a slow day for him…You know because all his designer buddies are making their own websites with Sitegrinder now..Haha.
I have used Sitegrinder for a long while now and I love the freedom. It does have a learning curve for people no familiar with web design best practices or people new to Photoshop but their webinars and documentation are second to none.
I still do not understand why web developers are so whiney when it comes to the evolution of the web. We are a society built on progress and simplifying mundane tasks. I have a hard time believing math geeks complained when they invented the calculator or when the computer became more sophisticated. The internet and web sites are more than just a bunch of people sitting in a dark room starring at code all day long. Everyone is on the web so it only makes sense for people to get together with the skills of old to create a product to allow the mundane task of making a website more practical to the masses. Sitegrinder is for the web what Photoshop is for design.
Extremest web developers are the churches and religion of the cyber world. Afraid of change and giving the ‘sheep’ more control over their domain.
Either way. That article he/she wrote has no comments. It’s just another rant post by an unknown in a sea of ranting unknowns.