I... don't know what to say. You do know that Dreamweaver has a rather advanced code editor (for hand coding, as you say) in addition to the visual editor?
It's super bloated, but it's by no means worse than any other editor out there...
> I was eager to find out how they made their site. I had asked booth groups and they each answered, “Dreamweaver.” “Oh. Nice.”, I thought, trying to hold back any laughter that I may have had. I was also asked the same question in return, saying “I hand coded it.” I was given the deer in the headlights stare. I don’t know if I received this look because they had no idea what I meant/said, or if they were in such awe of my superiority. To me it didn’t matter what their reaction was because I was going to win.
> I was curious enough to ask them to view their app and website. Was I shocked that their site was pretty bad? No. I had a gut feeling it was going to be horrific. Just before they left to present, I handed one of their team members one of my business cards and said for him to send me an email if he ever wanted my services – they were in definite need of them.
"This site is pretty good, not as good as what the other guy whipped up, but he seems like a jerk to work with and we may need additional support afterwards. Let's go with option B."
No just baffled that you would think someone would be in awe because of your superiority. When I work with people I treat them as equals and expect to be treated the same way, not to be looked down upon.
I think this post and the responses have given you a lot to mull over - at the end of the day I believe it was a good idea to post this because the feedback you're getting (mine was, admittedly, negative) could really help shape you to become better as an engineer on a team in your future endeavors. You're taking some lumps but at the end of it I think you'll take it as a big learning experience - good luck to you in the future!
"Now, I didn’t necessarily see the winning groups site, but you don’t have to – it was made in Dreamweaver!"
I want to believe that the arrogant tone in combination with this line are some sort of punch line or social experiment that I'm just not getting. Please?
It's some teenager that will regret this article later in life. Let's not give him even more attention. It's just getting more painful for him this way.
I used Dreamweaver for my web design class in high school. While back then it was slow and clunky, it worked well enough and already had somewhat working WYSIWYG editor. I used it to generate basic design and then would edit HTML file by hand to achieve desired result (such as rollover images).
I have fond memories of Dreamweaver, but I have not used it since. Bottom point it is idea and content that makes a website, not tools you use to get there.
Agree, the ego and hipstership of that comment was way off limits, to be serious. I would like to think that he is just trolling with us to keep it more ralistic.
Why is he so super elitist about "hand coding" a website?
I doubt he ever manually allocated memory in his life.
Being elitist always sucks no matter how awesome you are... but come on we are talking about a webdesign competition, not some x86_64 assembly hacking event. This is ridiculous.
Could you provide links to your site and the "dreamweaver" site so we can judge the quality of their work and yours?
By the way, are you fully aware of what DreamWeaver entails? we use it on smaller projects all the time, simply as a great code editor with some convenient features (incl. library includes, test servers etc etc). It works well for hand-coding, so use of DW doesn't need to imply anything more than which code editor the other team preferred.
No one should allow the tools used to create a website to influence which one they would choose as best... and this is virtually guaranteed at a "Future Business Leaders of America conference".
Wow. Egotistical much? 2nd place ain't bad. And who cares how it was made? I have just as much disdain for working in Dreamweaver, but if the site works, it works. The user doesn't care that your source code is prettier.
This reminds me of some of the clashes I see with many developers and some of the tech they come upon. There is a lot of disdain out there towards other developers that use/prefer stuff like WordPress, Drupal, PHP, Rails, vanilla jQuery, no CSS preprocessor, etc. However, I see a lot of developers who work in these technologies able to release solid products that work just fine.
In the end, the user doesn't care about what tech you used - they mainly care whether the site is usable, and looks clean. It doesn't matter whether you used [insert fancy tech/library/etc.]. I think a lot of us developers could learn from that and keep things in perspective, myself included.
So, maybe I have too much faith in people here, but I think this post is satire. While it's an extreme example, the attitude the author espouses- that there is one right way to do things and anyone doing otherwise is an idiot -is definitely not unheard. Hell, I've been plenty guilty of it myself, looking down my nose at someone using Eclipse as I struggle to remember 8 button long Emacs shortcuts.
I was hand coding back in 1997 and loved Dreamweaver 1.0 because I could peel back the covers and fiddle with the underlying JS to produce code identical to what I had been typing out tag by tag.
You should hold back this kind of response. Let comments like this stand. It's not crazy to google something for thirty seconds and the creep response does more to hurt your image.
I had asked booth groups and they each answered, “Dreamweaver.” “Oh. Nice.”, I thought, trying to hold back any laughter that I may have had.
I'm sort of glad he didn't win (I know - aren't I a terrible person?), if that was his high-handed attitude and dismissal of a tool that lets designers make sites... by hand.
You come off as extremely pretentious and arrogant in this blog post. HN is normally quite supportive of younger developers, but if they act and present themselves in the manner you do then can't expect anyone's opinion of you to do anything but plummet.
The design I have seen on your porfolio at http://5lin.es/portfolio/ is kinda ok but very samey and in no way entitles you to feel as though you are better than anybody else, particularly other highschool students who will have basic experience at most.
I feel like I have just told off an insolent child.
Hey man quit with the self pity and keep doing your thing. Forget about what everyone else is saying and just keep honing your craft, you're leagues ahead of any other high schoolers your age.
He probably isn't being sarcastic. You do seem leagues ahead of other highschoolers your age and that is probably inflating your ego a bit! Just keep a level head, man. You will find you will gain far more for yourself being supportive of others than you will from putting them down.
You're not better or worse than anyone. As far as I'm concerned, that kind of qualitative judgement doesn't really mean anything. You weren't able to meet the goals you defined within this particular system, and it's having a huge negative backlash in more than one way.
No, I don't think you should give up on coding or lose your drive to get better, but you need to use it as a reality check. I mean that even outside of realizing you are or aren't as good as you thought you are. I have no way to objectively measure how good you are. I think that's irrelevant anyway. The reality check should be that feelings of superiority are normally fickle and fleeting. In my opinion, they're also not terribly useful. They can crash to the ground in a second, and if your self worth is tied up in that, it's going to come crashing down as well.
It's not to say that competition and a drive to be the best are bad. They're definitely not; however, hubris and the absolute need to win aren't great. They completely robbed you of your ability to even think about more deeply analyzing what lead to your loss.
Things are almost never black and white. Dreamweaver isn't somehow intrinsically Bad, as though that's been written into the fabric of reality. It's bad when used a certain way, to accomplish certain goals, within a defined system. Things are hardly ever simple.
This is where I say something super hippyish. He's obviously not the only one who talks about this, but the Dalai Lama talks about recognizing and embracing your own weakness, to the point where it's a strength. If you're not at all ashamed with having been wrong, having come in second place, or not knowing something, it's much easier to give credit where it's due, to understand and improve upon your own weakness, to never get caught faking competence, and to appear confident and calm. People like that.
Anyway, end my high-horsed opinionated semi-ranting. ymmv
Don't worry about it man! To me, your biggest mistake here was not throwing up screenshots. Could've flipped the whole tone of this thread from a car crash into an actual hate-fest for crap design.
~ I got 2nd place in a C++ programming competition for "designing" a storefront. I'm in a state of sorrow and bewilderment because the winner used [Visual Studio / Eclipse / Sublime / Fancy Pants Keyboard / monitor / hands...].
Forgive me for not wading through the post. Was this a competition for visual design or writing HTML by hand? If the winner had used Front Page or some such, well, then this post might make sense.
It was for visual design, yet wasn't determined on choice of application. From what I have seen, most of the sites were very much like Front Page quality, yet they were made in DW. That's why I was assuming my competition was of the same quality.
The essay is riddled with mispellings and tense shifts, it is horribly arrogant, and it doesn't really serve any purpose other than to whine about this guy's failure.
Like another poster said, the kid will regret it later in life.
Please don't comment anymore, you'll only embarass him.
Yeah, he's super cocky and arrogant. But he is only in high school. I can remember, oh, 1 or 2 kids who thought they owned the school back when I was somewhere around there. The good news is, he has a lot of life left, and plenty of time to mature. Putting out this little article will I think help him head him down that path. Good luck Eugene - keep improving yourself.
Obviously we've never met, but as you've seen I'm not the only one who's inferred that from your post. I really do wish you the best in all your future ventures. Keep growing.
The author is still in high school and shouldn't be pretending he has any authority on anything at all at this stage of his life. Especially if he can't prove it.
Well taken into consideration that this was written over two and a half months ago while I was mad at the time (at this moment I'm not), yes. Satire all around.
Dreamweaver CS6 is actually an awesome web IDE. Yes they have features that are "for beginners" that automate some code generation, but you don't have to use them. For the "advanced" build-by-handers out there their suite of code editing features are very deep and frankly their syntax highlighting, hinting, auto-complete, and customization tools are better than almost every other web IDE out there, and I've used many of them.
It's funny how Dreamweaver got such a reputation, but I wonder if in this case the blank looks he was getting was because he still thinks Dreamweaver is for for point-and-click build my first website designers.
Edit: What made me change away from DW was a persistent memory leak that was unfixable/unbearable.
I am glad that you post thist article, since i hope that some of the comments here serve you to become a better person and break that little bubble of arrogance that you live in. Cheers
81 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 161 ms ] threadIt's super bloated, but it's by no means worse than any other editor out there...
> I was curious enough to ask them to view their app and website. Was I shocked that their site was pretty bad? No. I had a gut feeling it was going to be horrific. Just before they left to present, I handed one of their team members one of my business cards and said for him to send me an email if he ever wanted my services – they were in definite need of them.
Ugh.
I think he's right — just by reading the way you write, I can tell you're too full of yourself to even fathom the concept of working well with others.
I want to believe that the arrogant tone in combination with this line are some sort of punch line or social experiment that I'm just not getting. Please?
I kept waiting to see a punchline or a gotcha, but it just kept getting worse. Like one of the "nice guys" who wonders why the girl picks the "jerk".
I have fond memories of Dreamweaver, but I have not used it since. Bottom point it is idea and content that makes a website, not tools you use to get there.
You are aware that you can "hand-code" in Dreamweaver? Along with the WYSIWYG editor, there is a normal code editor.
Sigh...
I doubt he ever manually allocated memory in his life.
Being elitist always sucks no matter how awesome you are... but come on we are talking about a webdesign competition, not some x86_64 assembly hacking event. This is ridiculous.
I expect you're correct. [0]
0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6530585
Sure, it's 'hand coded', but there's some point where your ethics are compromising your productivity.
It'd be like not using a framework because you want your site to have a 'raw HTML' feel.
By the way, are you fully aware of what DreamWeaver entails? we use it on smaller projects all the time, simply as a great code editor with some convenient features (incl. library includes, test servers etc etc). It works well for hand-coding, so use of DW doesn't need to imply anything more than which code editor the other team preferred.
In the end, the user doesn't care about what tech you used - they mainly care whether the site is usable, and looks clean. It doesn't matter whether you used [insert fancy tech/library/etc.]. I think a lot of us developers could learn from that and keep things in perspective, myself included.
I was hand coding back in 1997 and loved Dreamweaver 1.0 because I could peel back the covers and fiddle with the underlying JS to produce code identical to what I had been typing out tag by tag.
http://www.sarasotacountyschools.net/schools/sarasotahigh/in...
Ctrl-F Eugene Ross
I'm sort of glad he didn't win (I know - aren't I a terrible person?), if that was his high-handed attitude and dismissal of a tool that lets designers make sites... by hand.
The design I have seen on your porfolio at http://5lin.es/portfolio/ is kinda ok but very samey and in no way entitles you to feel as though you are better than anybody else, particularly other highschool students who will have basic experience at most.
I feel like I have just told off an insolent child.
No, I don't think you should give up on coding or lose your drive to get better, but you need to use it as a reality check. I mean that even outside of realizing you are or aren't as good as you thought you are. I have no way to objectively measure how good you are. I think that's irrelevant anyway. The reality check should be that feelings of superiority are normally fickle and fleeting. In my opinion, they're also not terribly useful. They can crash to the ground in a second, and if your self worth is tied up in that, it's going to come crashing down as well.
It's not to say that competition and a drive to be the best are bad. They're definitely not; however, hubris and the absolute need to win aren't great. They completely robbed you of your ability to even think about more deeply analyzing what lead to your loss.
Things are almost never black and white. Dreamweaver isn't somehow intrinsically Bad, as though that's been written into the fabric of reality. It's bad when used a certain way, to accomplish certain goals, within a defined system. Things are hardly ever simple.
This is where I say something super hippyish. He's obviously not the only one who talks about this, but the Dalai Lama talks about recognizing and embracing your own weakness, to the point where it's a strength. If you're not at all ashamed with having been wrong, having come in second place, or not knowing something, it's much easier to give credit where it's due, to understand and improve upon your own weakness, to never get caught faking competence, and to appear confident and calm. People like that.
Anyway, end my high-horsed opinionated semi-ranting. ymmv
Forgive me for not wading through the post. Was this a competition for visual design or writing HTML by hand? If the winner had used Front Page or some such, well, then this post might make sense.
Like another poster said, the kid will regret it later in life.
Please don't comment anymore, you'll only embarass him.
It's funny how Dreamweaver got such a reputation, but I wonder if in this case the blank looks he was getting was because he still thinks Dreamweaver is for for point-and-click build my first website designers.
Edit: What made me change away from DW was a persistent memory leak that was unfixable/unbearable.