To code or not to code?

Hi I'm new to the forum and new to building websites also. Basically I was just wondering if it is possible to build nice websites without really knowing any or much of any given programming language whatsoever. or how much I absolutely must know about coding to be any good at building websites whatsoever.

I've played around with dreamweaver a little, and fireworks, I'm pretty good with photoshop, and it looks so far to me that with just photoshop and dreamweaver you can make nice looking websites without any html knowhow or css.

i noticed that CSS seems to be a very powerful tool for making websites but so far it looks to me like it can only be useful if you know the language. is that right?

I haven't played around with flash yet, but i would also like to learn flash. does this require much coding knowledge to integrate into dreamweaver?

I would also like to be able to create online program typed things like forms and fairly simple things of that nature, possibly with flash or not. I think i want coldfusion for this, but i'm not really too sure on exactly on how it works or what it does, except for it being an intermediate step in the whole server\html retrieval step and that it is used for building online programs. I guess i'm just wondering what the limitations are of online forms in dreamweaver and what capabilities coldfusion introduces and whether or not you need to know another coding language for that.

Don't make the mistakes I made. I am not going to make it seem as serious as this, anyway, if you really have long-term passions to web-building, learn CSS for better design. Dreamweaver helps but in the end, you gotta know what it's coding, trust me. So right now, I'm back to ground up for CSS. The reason you're writing on this forum is showing that you're quite into programming and yes, I assure you it's going to be extremely useful too. Dreamweaver online forms? It doesn't exactly teach you about coding, basically. You gotta search yourself to put in the codes. Dreamweaver is a kinda text editor. It doesn't replace you from coding. After getting experiences so far, and hearing what others say.. Notepad2 does pretty good job. You can still put your knowledge about coding into dreamweaver of course. Like, creating a CSS file by yourself, and work in dreamweaver. The only thing is it tempted you to use the shortcut, button, which it stops you from learning.

Actually the thing is i would really like to be able to build versatile websites, but i would love to be able to do it without coding or learning any language at all in a perfect world.

i love the idea of designing and creating interesting web designs i'm just not too excited about creating them using a text editor. So really i would like to know if this is possible and what the limitations would be for not being fluent in coding languages.

I have a feeling that CSS really needs expertise in this area and i find that disappointing so far because after visiting http://www.csszengarden.com/ it looks like css is a very useful tool, and this zen garden site and linked sites apparently don't even take advantage of it's latest functions.

on the other hand as i understand it, flash is much more on the design aspect of things, so maybe what i would want is to get proficient using flash, but i'm uncertain as to how it integrates with dreamweaver, or on it's on-web program capabilities.

I think that no matter what route i wish to take i will need to learn some html and css. but really i would like to avoid needing to become an expert in these languages, at least i would like to avoid learning the language as such in a beginning step and rather use it as a tool to complement the design aspect where needed, on kind of a learn as you go basis. I'm just not sure if that's possible. judging by your post that seems like a mistake i don't want to make.

It looks to me like that means giving up on css pretty much altogether apart from the dreamweaver css attributes, which i think are very limited compared to the potential of css, but if i use flash photoshop and dreamweaver is that catastrophic?



also on a side note, that zen garden site is meant to showcase css. so there are links to many pages that use the same html code but different css to make different designs, at least that's what i understood it to be.

you can download the html file and the css file, but i am not clear on how these things work together. ideally i would like to download the css html and images hosted, and then play around with these things to see what they do. but i don't really know what to do with the css file, how to associate it with the html how to preview it in a browser and whatnot.

I would say get someone to code it for you properly then explain how to change it or make a user interface for you to change it through.

You can do a lot with Photoshop and Dreamweaver without knowing any code, but I think you'll run into trouble eventually. The problem is that PS kicks out some pretty ugly code (even if you change the settings to export in divs). Dreamweaver is a nice program, but it's a lot more powerful in the hands of someone who understands the code behind it. Bottom line is you're going to run into roadblocks as you try to make the websites more dynamic because you won't understand the framework you built.

One possibility if you really want to just focus on design and not functionality is to work with CMS themes. For example, you can create a Wordpress website and then completely change the way it looks. Of course, you're going to have to have a really solid understanding of CSS to do that, but the good news is that you won't really need to know much else besides CSS.

To really be a web designer, though, I personally think you need to be fluent in XHTML and CSS, and have at least a little knowledge of JavaScript and some kind of server-side script (PHP, ASP, etc.)

The most important thing about any website is the content so to build the best websites you don't need to know any coding. Just use a cms.
OK if you want to make online art then you need to code but usability is all about consistency and simplicity so most cms systems now just apply templates to the same layout.
I think long term very few people will code. The same thing has happened to all software development and web design is only held back by the crudeness of browsers.
Yes it's worth learing the basics and the more you learn the more you can do but to long term you probably won't use any of it.
More like facebook or modern object based authoring packages.
Hand coding is sooooo slow and crude it can never last.
That's my opinion anyway.

Agreed. Sure, you can download a CMS, type a bunch of content, and slap a theme on it to end up with a pretty nice looking website, but I don't think that really fits the definition of 'web design'.


To me, the code that is created by software like Dreamweaver and Frontpage is the crude stuff. Also, I've never actually raced anyone, but I bet I could hold my own hand coding in Notepad++ up against someone using Dreamweaver

Long term very few people will use code.

I agree.

When is the last time you:
WINDOWS R, CMD, ENTER, del "c:\documents and settings\USERNAME\Desktop\random.file"

Instead of either click, hit delete, hit enter or dragged file to recycle bin and clicked yes?

GUI is the way to the masses. When Adobe DW gets serious about creating only strict CSS code, you won't need to go back in by hand except to do script stuff.

And then, people can charge even more for manual fixes, since less and less people will know what is really going on.

And this is giving us, web-programmers opportunities to show our true strength.

So what will they use? what else do you code with other than code?

I think the idea is that the code part would be used only by the software developers that develop web design tools such as dreamweaver, in such a way that the user would not require any knowledge of code whatsoever, but rather just use the gui interface to tell the software how the page should look and the program takes care of the rest seamlessly. probably one day dreamweaver will be able to accomplish this but it's not quite there yet.
and i'm way too much of a noob to understand exactly why it isn't

similarly you could do anything you can do in photoshop strictly in code, but they made a nice program that allows you to tell the program what to do in a much more user friendly way. also kind of like dos vs windows, like someone else said.

but there will always be code somewhere, the difference is there will be a further step in the division of labour which would separate web designers and coders, as is the progression in every profession, towards more specialized experts.

In my opinion this is a huge problem with the internet. Too many people that attempt to "webmaster" a site, don't have a single clue what the code that makes it work is all about. I have used multiple wysiwyg editors, including Dreamweaver and Frontpage and skip the design view on both and go straight to the code view. The biggest problem is novices use wysiwyg editors because they have no clue how to do anything else. Pros also use them because they are time efficient, but in all seriousness if you want to have a site/page display exactly as you want it to you HAVE to understand the code that makes it display.

I'm not dissing GUI editors, but it's the cheap way out. Learn the code or get out of the business.