NYTimes.com Hand-Codes HTML & CSS

eldavojohn writes "The design director of NYTimes.com, Khoi Vinh, recently answered readers' questions in the Times's occasional feature 'Ask the Times.' He was asked how the Web site looks so consistently nice and polished no matter which browser or resolution is used to access it. His answer begins: 'It's our preference to use a text editor, like HomeSite, TextPad or TextMate, to "hand code" everything, rather than to use a wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) HTML and CSS authoring program, like Dreamweaver. We just find it yields better and faster results.'"

Re:Benefits vs Issues

[rhavenn]

Let's look 'objectively' at this:
1. Handcoding takes a lot more effort and needs more 'actual' writers than before. So more techies keep their jobs in a recession.
Score: Hancoding 1: Dreamweaver: 0

No, given a good IDE with some basics it takes less effort. Every time I want to use Dreamweaver I end up losing some hair. It's a frustrating piece of software if you know what you're doing or want to do and it won't let you.

2. Hancoding requires extensive knowledge of all CSS and DHTML codes plus javascript/JScript. So only the really good techies get the job, and not some script monkey. Survival of fittest.
Score: Hancoding 2: Dreamweaver: 0

This is a good thing. Your designers SHOULD know the ins and outs of 80-90% of their code and tags.

3. Handcoding takes far more time than is necessary in a changing scenario of today's news. Effort not proportional to returns. As a shareholder, i would sue them for wasting money.
Score: Hancoding 2: Dreamweaver: 1

I doubt they hand code every story into the page. They have a template / publishing system for all articles / layouts. It's probably far, far faster to do it by hand then trying to wrap Dreamweaver into it.

4. Dreamweaver allows preview easily and pretty much automates repeatable tasks. Handcoding requires a Mechanical Turk.
Score: Hancoding 2: Dreamweaver: 2

dual monitors, sshfs mounted file system and vim will do it far faster then Dreamweaver.. alt-tab works okay if you're stuck with one monitor.

So its a tie.

Nope, I would say hand-coding: 3.5 and Dreamweaver .5

I appreciate NYTimes sticking to manual tasks for an electronic page as an end user and a techie.
I hate them for wasting my money as a shareholder.

I would applaud them for not wasting your money on software licenses and doing the job correctly.

Re:W3C

[dgatwood]

Agreed. <br /> should be, AFAIK, guaranteed to work in any working HTML parser because all HTML browsers have to ignore unknown properties in tags, including potentially that slash, in order to be forward-compatible with future changes to the specification. Assuming they included the space, then IMHO the W3C validator is being way too pedantic (as usual). If they left out the space (<br/>), then the W3C validator is right to warn about it, as that form does choke some HTML parsers, IIRC.

Re:W3C

[Bogtha]

all HTML browsers have to ignore unknown properties in tags

That reasoning would work if the people behind XML had chosen any other character to indicate empty elements. But unfortunately, they chose the slash. Not many people realise because browser support is rare, but a slash inside an opening tag means that it is the end of the tag and the contents follow. Basically, <foo/>x/ is equivalent to <foo>>x</foo> .

So no, while parsers that don't implement HTML fully might mistakenly treat it like an attribute, a parser that fully implements HTML cannot do so, and a validator certainly shouldn't.

the W3C validator is being way too pedantic (as usual).

What on earth do you think a validator is for, if not to point out syntax errors? Do you complain that your spelling checker is being pedantic when it tells you that you have misspelt something?

Re:W3C

[InlawBiker]

You guys are all wrong. the NYT is right, because the comment was, "...the Web site looks so consistently nice and polished no matter which browser or resolution is used to access it."

In other words they worried about the user experience, not technically standard syntax or some parser's score.

It's nice to see that not only does the New York Times hire the best writers, they also hire the best techs.

Re:W3C

[ultranova]

Sure, if you don't bother to do things right, today's major browsers will probably guess that you're an idiot and work around your bugs.

They will try to work around your bugs. There's no guarantee that the heuristics of a given browser will succeed in correctly guessing what you actually meant in a given case.

The best argument for writing bugless web pages is not that it takes less work (it does), nor that they works with more browsers (they do) and thus give you more customers. No, the best argument is simple: "Given how stupid computers are, do you really want the appearance and function of your website to be up to their guesses ?"

Yes and, err, no?

[stewbacca]

Better results? Probably. Faster? No way. Never. Not gonna happen. Maybe they mean faster in the way that it is faster for guys who hand code lines of html all day to hand code lines of html all day because they don't have the first clue of how to use a WYSIWYG editor? If they know code so well, why not use Dreamweaver in pure code mode? The management tools of the suite alone are worth the ?extra? time.

Re:W3C

[dave420]

The two are not mutually exclusive. It's perfectly possible to make even the most beautiful sites render accurately across all the major browsers and still contain perfectly valid markup. It smacks of being lazy, or just not knowing the importance of validating code.

Re:Yes, and?

[Jellybob]

How I wish that was true.

It's the case for almost any *large* dynamic website, but having spent a couple of years doing web development in the design industry, I can tell you that at least in the UK, a large proportion of the small agencies are using Dreamweaver for most things.

Fuck knows why - I'd rather be handed an Illustrator file and turn it into HTML then have the crap that Dreamweaver spits out given to me, and have to try and turn it into something dynamic.

Blame our woefully inadequate education system

[blueZ3]

Anyone who's read even a modicum of literature would be aware that misspelt is the older/English spelling of the "American" misspelled. Of course, for anyone educated in our school system who lacks the interest or motivation to go beyond the standard curriculum, 100% reliance on the spell-checking function of their browser would lead them to believe that misspelt is mispelled. :-)

I must say however, that your insistence on lumping everyone in this country into the "ignorant American" stereotype is also pretty annoying and reinforces negative aspects the snobby European stereotype. :-)

Re:W3C

[dgatwood]

Browsers that don't comply are pretty much worthless. You can't even view the W3C specification without ignoring unknown attributes. Good luck with almost any web page on the planet. The following sites all either have nonstandard attributes or are missing required attributes:

• www.google.com
• www.yahoo.com
• www.excite.com
• www.altavista.com

You get the picture. Good luck using the web with a browser that performs strict attribute validation.... It may technically be non-binding, but in reality, any browser that doesn't follow that guideline isn't going to work with the overwhelming majority of web pages in existence today. And in the end, a browser that won't even let you view the Google front page is not going to be used by... well... anybody.