Member Avatar for kurianjoseph

Ultimately the answer to the question lies in what u prefer, your preferences. The question is who will rule the web 10yrs from now. 1. Active coding or 2. WYSIWYG ? With numero uno dreamweaver growing by leaps and bounds now CC following not far away MUSE with the revolutionary parallax scrolling, Both these softwares dont need your coding skills but design matter to play with them.I used muse and i found so easy it is to make a website with all the bells and whistles and there is a growing community of muse users giving feedback. I even found templetes for muse on sale.Adobe is damn serious with muse.
Question ? What a young designer new to this field will go for coding? or visual design? obviously the visual part since you dont have to break your head learning 2 languages HTML and CSS. For a freelancer or hobbyist WYSIWYG maybe a good solution but for a backend guy in serious stuff who makes a living on code and can digest the code.HTML and CSS are known as building blocks? Do you folks agree coz i beg to differ there is a lot of stuff going on out there and lots of softwares & sites to cater to your preferences, its time we shake hands with WYSIWYG. 10yrs from now you may not hear about coding a website but designing a website visually. Its kinda worrysome coz for all begginers and newbies where to start from.
Be honest in what you reply coz this may be a solution for all newbies.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by deceptikon

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Short, practical take: WYSIWYG tools will keep getting better for visual layout and rapid prototypes, but they will not remove the need to understand how the web works. ’s worry about where beginners should start is common; the most practical path combines visual fluency with core coding knowledge so work is fast and also maintainable.

Useful early skills that return the most value: semantic HTML, modern CSS layout techniques, responsive (mobile‑first) thinking, basic JavaScript for UI behavior, and confidence with browser developer tools. Those skills make it possible to audit and improve whatever a visual editor produces, avoid accessibility and performance pitfalls, and adapt when a particular tool becomes obsolete. This supports ’s point about learning from the ground up while keeping the speed advantages of higher‑level tools.

A compact workflow that blends both approaches:

  • Prototype visually to explore layout and interaction quickly.
  • Export and open the generated HTML/CSS in devtools or a code editor.
  • Scan for common problems: missing semantic tags, absent alt text, inline styles, duplicated ids, and huge images.
  • Refactor: move styles to external files, replace non‑semantic containers with proper elements, remove unused CSS.
  • Test across viewports and with keyboard navigation; check basic performance (image sizes, script weight).
  • Keep work in source control so changes are traceable and reversible.

Final note: WYSIWYG is excellent for fast delivery and nontechnical clients, but backend logic, integrations, performance tuning and complex UX still require coding—a point raised. For long‑term flexibility and career growth, design fluency plus the ability to read and clean code is the safest strategy.

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Member Avatar for JorgeM

I believe that for anyone that is serious about any area of interest, it is important to learn that area from the ground up, including becoming intimately familiar with the building blocks of that area. It doesnt matter if we are talking about web development, math, or any other product.

Just because you become an expert in that field of interest doesnt mean that you can't use the high level tools that are made availabe to the general population in that field.

In my case, when I was interested in web development, I picked up visual studio and a book to learn asp.net with no knowledge of HTML. Yes, I was able to build a basic website in just a few clicks, but i was unable to really understand how to customize the page and work outside of the IDE. I was very limited to using the controls provided in the IDE.

The real main objective of these high level tools is simply for rapid development. They are not a substitue for having a strong foundation.

Member Avatar for deceptikon

I think WYSIWYG is ideal for the display aspects of web development (HTML and CSS, specifically), and in the next 10 years the tools will hopefully be good enough that we don't need to drop down to the code to do what we want. As it is, drag-drop-configure gets you close, but not quite all the way, and I find myself dropping down to code views to tweak things.

All of the back-end and custom scripting probably won't be replaced with visual designers any time soon.

commented: Agreed. +2
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