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(Written
for the Wizmo Daily News website, November 2000) Website
Building: What site owners should know about hand coding, wysiwyg
and packaged solutions
By Greg Irsfeld
When it comes to putting
together a website, not all site owners want — or need —
to understand exactly how their pages are built. Still, a
general understanding of the pros and cons of the major site
building methods can help owners as they ponder their online
development direction.
First, let’s group the
various ways to build a web page into three methods:
Hand coding —
putting together pages at the code level. This means using
HTML to build pages as lines of code that display in a browser
the way the developer wishes.
Wysiwyg development
— building pages with off-the-shelf software (NetObjects
Fusion, Deamweaver, FrontPage, etc.) in a
“what-you-see-is-what-you-get (wysiwyg)”
environment. Developers build pages in a graphical,
desktop-publishing atmosphere — dragging and dropping
graphics on the page, typing text as you would in a word
processor — and the software generates the page code to
display the pages according to the specified design.
Packaged Web Solutions
providers — Using a “turnkey” packaged services
provider, (such as WizmoPro), to build, host and maintain a
site with features you choose from a menu of pre-defined —
and fixed-price — functions and options.
Each method has its
proponents. We spoke with Bruce Brorson, instructor at the
University of Minnesota-Crookston and a key official of the
Northern Great Plains Initiative for Rural Development and the
eBusiness Network, and Steve Hannah, Network Administrator for
the Northern Great Plains Initiative and part-time instructor
at the University of Minnesota-Crookston. Early adopters of
the web, Brorson and Hannah estimate they’ve built, or
directed the building of, almost 500 individual websites since
the mid-90s.
Among those sites, Brorson
says that roughly one-third were hand-coded sites, and the
rest were built with wysiwyg software
Hand-coding: precision,
high-end functionality
“With hand-code, you get
cleaner code,” Brorson says. People need to understand
what’s going on, he says. Wysiwyg pages are still
built with page code, but instead of a developer writing lines
of code, the wysiwyg software generates it. With wysiwyg
development, “you develop the look and feel on the screen,
and when you publish it, all the code is generated by the
software.” While that code follows page-building rules,
it’s not always as precise as a hand-written code, Brorson
says.
Hand-coders avoid the
“compromise paths” that wysiwyg-generated code
sometimes takes, Brorson says.
Also, hand-coding today is
not like it used to be, Brorson adds. “It’s not building
pages keystroke-by-keystroke in Notepad-like text editors.
With today’s programs such as Allaire’s HomeSite, you pick
your start tag and your end tag from a menu.” Developers
still build the code line-by-line, but the HTML tagging is
menu-driven. “The experienced coder is quick to figure out
the shortcuts,” and still maintain precision.
And precision becomes
especially important as sites add higher-end functionality,
such as database applications, Hannah says. “For a company
starting out on the web, and they want to manage it
themselves, wysiwyg is going to do it for them.” If a
company is moving into online applications, database-driven
modules or features such as custom reservations, “you’re
not going to get that in a wysiwyg tool,” Hannah
says. “There will always be plenty of work for the
hand-coders.”
Wysiwyg: rapid
deployment, site management
Wysiwyg is now the
primary development environment for both Brorson and Hannah.
Strong proponents of NetObjects Fusion software, they’re
also familiar with other wysiwyg tools, such as Dreamweaver,
GoLive and FrontPage.
With wysiwyg, instead
of learning the HTML coding language — which some equate to
learning an arcane foreign language — you learn a software
package. The software writes the code to properly display the
page in a browser.
With wysiwyg, Brorson
says “you can generate your web pages in a much more timely
manner. It’s rapid deployment software.” And rapid
deployment can lead to reduced development costs, he says.
Another benefit Brorson cites
lies in site management. The wysiwyg software offers
more features to manage your site — features that help
establish and maintain site architecture, standard navigation,
hyperlinks, and other components. Wysiwyg can also help
to standardize code in multiple author environments; for
instance, where several departments each have responsibility
to author and maintain their individual site content.
Regarding functionality
issues, today’s wysiwyg tools are advancing with
every version, Brorson says. “With some of the newer
versions, you get multiple code generation — such as .ASP
(Active Server Page), and JavaScript — not just HTML,”
Brorson says.
Hannah agrees: “As the
software adds more and more tools, they’re inserting the
stuff that’s been in the realm of the hand coder.” That
functionality can come at a price, however, Hannah suggests.
“Some of these wysiwyg tools have fairly high
learning curves.” Still, Hannah says the wysiwyg
tools are getting easier to use.
When asked if it’s possible
to develop and manage a fully functional site using only wysiwyg
tools, Brorson says, “Absolutely.”
Packaged Web Solutions:
proven functionality, fixed-prices
Then there’s the turnkey
website option offered by packaged web solution providers,
such as Twin-Cities-based WizmoPro.
“We use modular development
and code reuse to develop websites quickly and efficiently,”
explains Wendy Marko, director of WizmoPro. Clients choose
from pre-defined options and functionalities for sites ranging
from a base website to a base eStore to an advanced eCommerce
site. Packages include project management and quality
assurance. “They can add more advanced functionalities at
any point,” Marko says. Clients can even choose the option
to maintain their site content on their own, through their web
browser. The text changes they type in their browser appear on
the site.
The main benefits of a
packaged web solution, Marko says, are decreased time to
market, proven functionality, decreased costs, scalability,
and fixed prices. “Through code re-use, much of the work is
already done, ” Marko explains, so sites go live more
quickly — and at a decreased cost (compared to custom code).
And since they use familiar code, “It has been previously
tested,” she adds. “There’s proven functionality. And
fees are fixed, so businesses can more easily manage their
technology budgets than in a time and materials engagement.”
Owners will also find the
sites are scalable, meaning “They can add-on functionality
at any time.” Along with that there are follow-up
consultations and maintenance packages available.
Regarding any downsides to a
packaged solution, Marko is succinct. A packaged solution is
“not fully custom,” she explains; “the options aren’t
limitless.” And packaged solutions tend to be more expensive
than purely template-driven solutions — where the basic
look, feel and architecture might stay primarily the same
among different websites, with content (text and graphics)
being the only thing that’s different.
Still,
the packaged web solution, Marko says, is an especially good
fit “for people who can clearly articulate their needs, and
are looking to build an application very quickly.”
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