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Is It Time To Ditch Drag-And-Drop And Finally Learn To Code?
I admire the guys and girls that learn the code, and looking back, I wish I had learned some code when I had the opportunities back in high school & early college. At this point, for me, it's a matter of priorities.
Thanks M – Yeh I totally get that.
Funnily I need to get in the workshop a hell of a lot more. Guess we're all missing something!
I'm curious about three things:
Hey Daniel – good questions
1. I wonder whether there is something around the particular learning curve of the skills in question. I guess I found with a relatively short time investment in web dev I could get to a level where the practival skill was useful to me and my work, and the knowledge would be put me in good stead for working with any developers I might come across. If we were talking about some much more complex coding then it probably wouldn't have been worth the investment as it would take so much time that my other skills would no doubt be neglected and diluted. This trade off is probably when the collaboration/specialisation comes in.
2. Hmm fair point – I appreciate the purist work-should-speak-for-itself argument. Personally, I find that the similarity of sites lowers the perceived value (which professional design agency or indeed any credible organisation uses a template?) and perhaps is also a little less inspiring and intriguing on account of being. I also find that template sites can occasionally be buggy, slow and unpleasant to use. I'm not sure if this is an empirical web fact (anyone?) but thats my experience. On top of that, as an aesthetically sensitive individual, I find template often don't give me the flexibility or accuracy that I'm after – and I was always frustrated knowing I could do better. In fact I think I've spent so long furiously fiddling with Squarespace sliders and drag and drops that I probably should've made the leap earlier!
3. It is indeed a WYSIWYG editor, not dissimilar to this comments section. Its an interesting point. I guess there's times when conformity of templates make sense. I'm also fairly sure the site was designed coded from scratch(ish) in the first place for folks like me to input into. Don't think we could accuse Core77 of being a template! :D
Thanks again Daniel!
Thanks for replying. It is a good point that coding skill can be gained relatively quickly, and there are many tools for ramping up that skill gradually, which may not exist for other skills that fall under the same rubric for needing to learn.
Totally spot on! I put off learning to code for a long time because it seemed daunting and unnecessary, but eventually the benefits just clearly outweighed the costs and I finally bit the bullet.
It certainly paid off, enabling me to travel the world building websites as a barter deal, from a month all-inclusive in a 5 star resort in Peru, to a dive course in the Carribean, and a jungle lodge in Panama.
There aren't very many code courses that are well suited to creatives, which was part of the inspiration behind my new startup The Institute of Code. We think we've found the perfect formula for teaching creatives to code:
- course content that is results driven and tailored to the individual students
- small group sizes (8-12 students to 2-3 teachers)
- experienced mentors who are actively working in the industry
- an immersive environment away from the stress of everyday life (a luxury pool villa on a tropical island)
- nothing else to worry about (all inclusive package, private on-site chef, included yoga or surf lessons).
We know that to succeed in this industry we need to provide amazing value, so we include everything above (and more) for 30% less than the similar course by General Assembly.
Would love to know your thoughts!
Sam - I love good design, but don't think I could ever roll my own website, because I'm not that good at design, especially with regard to graphic design.
Make love, not code.
I applaud life long learning -- I've done it my whole career. But, after learning to "code your on site" it still looks like a template. This isn't so much a criticism as it is the reality of the browser experience. I don't think coding is necessary anymore -- Adobe Muse is a fantastic web design environment and it really works -- no code, all visual, no restrictions, very similar to using InDesign or if you are old enough to remember, Aldus Pagemaker. The code is all in the background, if it not the most elegant or compact code, who cares. Internet connections and networks are fast enough to make up for some bloat. Would you want to code you company brochure or would you use a page layout program?
Very fair point Dan
It's very true that my first foray into from scratch website making hasn't exactly broken from many of the design conventions that are widespread across template and non-template web. Of course, having got my head around the coding, now I want tear it up and start again!
That said I still found that "coding my own" gave the flexibility and precision that I was looking for – from big things like structuring sections to the small things like spacing, interactions and even being able to include as many titles/subtitles as I saw fit.
Admittedly I haven't tried Muse (put off by past Dreamweaver experiences perhaps) but that sounds like it might be a great option
Thanks for your thoughts!
I've dabbled into learning html/css as well through classes and codeacademy and I've always seen it as a segway towards studying ui/ux design, as webdev and the latter fields are still strongly linked together.
right on the money with this article. I myself have a start up studio and im getting around bringing a website online and i can say i rather let this job handled by a pro. I want my site and image to look great and im hindered by my web abilities, so i would prefer to get it right the first time instead of grueling a long time trying to make the site better. These tools we have now are fine and some can achieve very good results, however i think it is true that eventually squarespace will be victim of its own success since 90% of every new site nowadays uses one of its templates and its become the norm. Me? now i want to be my site to be different and set it apart from what squarespace has to offer...
Thanks Lucas
Yes if you've got the cash, getting the professionals in is probably a good idea!
Hi Sam
Cheers dude!
Hey Sam, great piece.