Coder Or Designer? HELP ME SOLVE THIS DILEMMA

[phill3112 0]

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT MY DILEMMA? SOME OF MY FRIENDS ARE IN WEB DESIGN BUISINESS AND FEW OF THEM ARE USING DREAMWEAVER (VISUAL DESIGNING ONLY) AND PHOTOSHOP AND THEY ARE ASSURING ME THAT I CAN MAKE A GREAT WEB PAGE WITH NO CODING KNOWLEDGE. AT THE OTHER SIDE ONE OF THEM IS WORKING ONLY WITH COREL, PHOTOSHOP, AND THEN FINISHING WITH CODE (HTML, PHP...) AN HE IS ASSURING ME THAT THERE IS NOTHING LIKE CODING. I'VE BOUGHT HTML TUTORIAL BOOK AND NOW I DON'T KNOW SHOULD I START LEARNING CODE (IS THAT NECESSARY) BECAUSE I ALLREADY KNOW TO MAKE A VERY GOOD WEB PAGE ONLY WITH DREAMWEAVER (VISUAL) AND PHOTOSHOP.PLEASE GIVE ME FEW PROPOSITIONS AND DIRECT ME ON RIGHT WAY!P.S.I DONT KNOW ALMOST ANYTHING ABOUT CODING, BUT I AM ANXIOUS TO LEARN!!

[jlhaslip 4]

First thing you need to learn is the location of the Caps Lock.

[tricky77puzzle 0]

First thing you need to learn is the location of the Caps Lock.

Agreed. Second, use Dreamweaver just to test things out, instead of actually coding the whole thing using it. (Or, you could use Nvu or Quanta+ for that.) If you're going to build the whole page using Dreamweaver, it's going to be way too bloated, and your bandwidth will go away about 3 times as quickly.

[sonesay 7]

You have to code as page makers will include code that is not as compatible or optimized as it can be across different browsers. Once you get into dealing with trying to obtain pixel perfect layouts with elements across multiple browsers you will understand the need to code things from scratch. First learn HTML then move on to CSS once you picked that up. You will also want to learn javascript as well later on to give you come more control over your website.

[darran 0]

If you are looking to create webpages which are 'standard', in other words with good 'grammar'. Using the design view of Dreamweaver just won't cut it. The problem with websites nowadays is that not every browser can display a website the same way as the other, and it is very important to adhere to good grammer as it goes a long way in ensuring your site will more or less display the same way in every browser. Of course this is not definite, there are bound to be some glitches. You cannot escape coding in websites, more often than not, those websites created entirely from the visual designer in Dreamweaver are websites with poor 'grammar' which are not going to be understood accurately by web browsers.

 

As a result, these browsers will try to interpret your website and do not be surprised if your site looks entirely different when you put them through Internet Explorer and FireFox. Take the guy's advice here, learn HTML and CSS first, after that you can go further deeper into JavaScript and other server languages like PHP, ASP, JSP ... etc A good website for beginners is W3Schools but of course do not use that as a learning guide, just take it as an introduction to what you are about to learn.

[galexcd 0]

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT MY DILEMMA? SOME OF MY FRIENDS ARE IN WEB DESIGN BUISINESS AND FEW OF THEM ARE USING DREAMWEAVER (VISUAL DESIGNING ONLY) AND PHOTOSHOP AND THEY ARE ASSURING ME THAT I CAN MAKE A GREAT WEB PAGE WITH NO CODING KNOWLEDGE. AT THE OTHER SIDE ONE OF THEM IS WORKING ONLY WITH COREL, PHOTOSHOP, AND THEN FINISHING WITH CODE (HTML, PHP...) AN HE IS ASSURING ME THAT THERE IS NOTHING LIKE CODING. I'VE BOUGHT HTML TUTORIAL BOOK AND NOW I DON'T KNOW SHOULD I START LEARNING CODE (IS THAT NECESSARY) BECAUSE I ALLREADY KNOW TO MAKE A VERY GOOD WEB PAGE ONLY WITH DREAMWEAVER (VISUAL) AND PHOTOSHOP.
PLEASE GIVE ME FEW PROPOSITIONS AND DIRECT ME ON RIGHT WAY!

P.S.
I DONT KNOW ALMOST ANYTHING ABOUT CODING, BUT I AM ANXIOUS TO LEARN!!

MY CAPSLOCK KEY IS BROKEN TOO!!!!

First thing you need to learn is the location of the Caps Lock.

OH COME ON HASLIP, CAPSLOCK IS THE CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL!!1!!1!

All seriousness now, people who make websites in dreamweaver and similar software are usually looked down on. First of all their websites won't look the same on all browsers, are not to w3 standards (sometimes they are but a lot of times they end up messing this up), and just make the designer look unprofessional. If you really are too lazy to learn html then I suppose you could use dreamweaver, but html is not a programing language. It uses tags to modify the text that the browser loads into a pretty gui. Php and javascript are programing languages. You wouldn't really need to learn those unless you wanted to do more advanced websites like ones that needed accounts.

[darran 0]

All seriousness now, people who make websites in dreamweaver and similar software are usually looked down on. First of all their websites won't look the same on all browsers, are not to w3 standards (sometimes they are but a lot of times they end up messing this up), and just make the designer look unprofessional. If you really are too lazy to learn html then I suppose you could use dreamweaver, but html is not a programing language. It uses tags to modify the text that the browser loads into a pretty gui. Php and javascript are programing languages. You wouldn't really need to learn those unless you wanted to do more advanced websites like ones that needed accounts.

Now now let's not generalize, I use dreamweaver to make websites, and they are to w3 standards and I always test on Safari, FireFox and IE. Though I am using the code mode and not the designer mode. I like to think of javascript as a language based on a browser because we do have the ability to turn off javascript. PHP on the other hand is a server language and we do not have the flexibility of turning that off. That is why we should never depend too much on Javascript in our websites, though the web is progressing in that aspect with mootools, jquery and scriptaculous and other javascript frameworks. Not to mention one of the most common technologies: Ajax is making use of javascript

[digitline 0]

It is not realy a dilemma. In the age of Internet 1.x you had the option, or were constrained to hard code the design with the content. With the Internet 2.0 you are practicaly forced to separate looks from content. New terms are: skinning, tableless, CSS, modularity and so on. The main objective is to have the content that is easy to manage: insert-edit-update, and the content system will think of the rest.
I suggest you to have a look at Joomla Content Management System and it's skinning abilities... It will let you do almost everything without coding. There is also a larg number of modules and components, but in the end you will see that you have to code in order to achieve some extra effects... Anyway, there is a site, in your own language: http://www.crojoomla.com/ where you can find more details. You will see that with Joomla! many coding is done long ago. Many free template let you experiment, find the looks and layout you like, then when you get down on it it's inevitable that you will bump into some coding.

[DeM0nFiRe 0]

Using something like Front Page or Dreamweaver to code your site for you is not a good idea at all. Maybe using them to make a design mock-up could work, but there are multiple reasons why a generated page won't work out very well in the long run. As has been said, the code generated is not guaranteed to work on all browsers and often includes things that are not necessary. Also, you just don't have good control over what your site looks like if you're not coding it. In addition, a generated page can't really do very much in the way of interactivity. Sure, you can have pages linked to eachother, but the pages can't process any data or change or anything like that. Your best bet is to learn to code for yourself. If you need help learning, go to w3schools.com

[midnightvamp 1]

I use Dreamweaver all the time myself, and can build to XHTML standards in the program without a problem. Mind you, I don't build everything to fully validate because I like to find a balance between strict coding and usability. Plus some things just can't be validated when they are 'embedded' from another site that doesn't offer you the ability to correct their code. The main thing is, when there is a client that tells me they want HTML 1.0 Strict coding, I can do it in Dreamweaver. The thing that is probably different though, is that I spend most of my time in the "Code View". Sure, Dreamweaver can act as a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) Editor, but it is also very good at handling user-entered code. Because of this, I do nearly everything in the Code View. This way Dreamweaver doesn't get the chance to mess around with my code and I have the freedom of being able to make things look and act just the way that I want them to. Plus, I can have my pages all easily accessible and organized, because of the way Dreamweaver is set up. I also really like having my FTP right in the same program that I use to make my websites, merely a keystroke away. Yes - keyboard shortcuts are a wonderful thing. And inside Dreamweaver, I just press CRTL+SHIFT+U and my page is on the internet where I want it to be (This only works if you've properly set up up your site and the path to the folder on the server where you wish for your files to go.)I also test my sites on different browsers and resolutions to better ensure that what is seen on one screen is seen on the others. That's something that every website designer should be doing if they want their website to "be all that it can be" so to speak.So, coding or designer? I really think to be a successful web designer you need to have a little of both worlds. If you want to make sites that will work on different browsers properly, I think you are going to need to learn how to code. There's really no getting around it. Basic HTML isn't all that difficult, and from there you can learn about CSS Styles, and then add other things if you need it, like PHP or whatever works best for you. I say that you're going to need to learn how to code because if you just work out of the visual side of Dreamweaver, you will have very "fat" and messy code. The program generates a lot of extra coding that can be redundant and not the best way of coding. Plus, the code that it does create, though it is pretty good, still isn't up to the standards of an actual live person doing the coding. You're site may not act the way you want it too, and it more than likely will act differently depending on the browser - which isn't a good thing.So yea, sorry I got so long winded there... I didn't expect to talk this much. In summary then - To make good web sites that will work right in different browsers, and have then look nice too, you'll more than likely need to be both a coder and a designer.

[thewebkid 0]

It is always good to know html. This way when you playing around with Dreamweaver and you want to make some changes to the code, you can do so. Also is you want to make a career out of it, I would strongly recommend learning Xhtml and CSS. No one will want to hire you if you only know how to build a website using Dreamweaver. Although never underestimate it's power. Dreamweaver is definitely one of the most powerful web design tools out there and some people and companies prefer to learn to use Dreamweaver than invest in a web designer.Hope that helps!

[hippiman 0]

It also kind of helps to use a WYSIWYG editor like Dreamweaver just to learn HTML. You make some stuff in design view, then look at the cod that was generated, and you can learn a lot. Sometimes it can help more than the w3schools tutorials.Once you get the basics from that, it becomes really easy to code in HTML. If you want to do something new, you can always just google it, or try and figure something out with CSS or javascript.PHP is more for the functionality of the website. If you need to use a database or something, that is the most useful, unless you know some other server-side language.

[albumfreak 0]

You should probably have a good idea about both if you want to be decent at web design. But if you wanted to choose one to learn more about, i'd make it coding. You can only go so far when making a webpage graphically when you need to dip into your coding skills and mix around with the php and css to make your site look exactly how you want it to. It might seem a little bit harder at first but, trust me, it will pay off. It's also good because you loose the bottleneck that is coding because with coding, you can only do so much as your knowledge allows you however with design, you can do as much as your creativity lets you do. the choice is easy

[crepusculart 0]

I agree with the previous post. I'm myself more on the design side because it's more easy for me (already using Photoshop and such for other type of art). Anyway, I try to go into the coding side because it's the most important thing. You can customize your own site and understand what you are doing. Indeed, I use CMS like joomla or even wordpress when I'm lazy and don't want to go that much into coding but sometimes you haven't the choice. But it's easing your pain too using CMS. Anyway, I don't think it'll give you the best overall-looking site... That's my point of view anyway.I'm also using Flash to create some sites but it also needs coding skills even if it's not the same language. Some will look down on me about using Flash since it's quite a polemical issue about doing websites in a whole flash way.So, finally, you have to go on each side, both coding and design, but coding will be the most painful part (the one I'm currently experiencing right now...). But it'll be really useful for you to do so.

[sonesay 7]

Thats right you can design your site to be as flash as you want but when you come to finally build it its in HTML so you will be limited to what you can do here by how much HTML and CSS you know. This doesn't take awfully too long to pick up but it does take considerably much more time to really master. If you really enjoy building websites and want to make a career out of it you have to master your web coding skills. A CMS is the easy route out and you are limited by what you can do with a CMS. I see jobs out there on a rare occasion where they want you to have CMS experience but I don't really get it since its like saying you need experience in dreamweaver where you could do HTML in any text editor.If you don't care about being an expert in HTML/Web then go use a CMS it will be less headache for you to get a site up and you have access to somewhat useful controls that have been built into them.