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Luke Buśk
21,598 PointsCustom CSS vs Drag 'n Drop Page Builders
Hello,
I was recently talking with my friend who is creating Wordpress websites for money. During our talk i asked him what he is using for responsive design and i heard "what?". Then i asked him if he ever used bootstrap or zurb to help line up stuff. Reply was the same.
It turned out he is using Drag and Drop Page Builder. He said that coding CSS with bootstrap/zurb is waste of time and that i should just use page builders. Then he showed me all websites made with this and that made me wonder...
Am i loosing my time learning HTMl,CSS,Js and programming (PHP,Ruby) ? To be honest i prefer to do stuff manually in css file and have full control of what happens on the website, but if this is how the future looks, should i still do it manually?
Or maybe i should charge premium price for doing most of the stuff manually and adjust responsive design to different devices manually?
2 Answers
Kevin Korte
28,149 PointsYour friend has a glass ceiling over his head. I don't know about you, but I didn't get into web development to remain under a glass ceiling.
What I mean is, he's limited to what he can do.
No you're absolutely not wasting your time learning to build from scratch. 1000's of companies need guys and gals who can build from scratch.
What you're friend is, is not a web developer, so I wouldn't web advice from him. Although I'm sure he's a fine, and intelligent guy. But let's be real, what he is, is a freelance marketer. Small cottage businesses are hiring to build a site because they don't have the time, or desire to try to do what he's doing themselves, so they're willing to pay him to get it done. That's marketing, that's not web development.
If you're going to code manually, like a lot of here, than you need to have the right clients too. Not every client needs a $2,000 custom site, at least not from the beginning. A $300 wysiwyg site might be a good start for a microbusiness, and if that's the case, you shouldn't charge them a custom site price. As a developer, you should look out for the best interest of your potential customer, even if it means you say, "Hey, look, you probably don't need to pay me $2000 for a custom site, when for $300 you can get a templated site with your name and phone online. Down the road if this grows, I'd be happy to build you whatever you need then."
Sorry if this sounded harsh, but there is an undertone of ignorance from your friend (not because he's stupid, but because he doesn't understand of that he speaks about), and I wanted to push back hard to encourage you to continue your progress.
Kai Nightmode
37,045 PointsDrag and drop tools are like legos. You can make lots of interesting things within limits.
Custom coding is like a 3D printer. You can make ANYTHING. Woo!
Jacob Mishkin
23,118 PointsJacob Mishkin
23,118 PointsAll I can say is Agreed! Also its just frontend, you can't build a theme with that stuff or a plugin. simply put drag and drop is used for people who don't know how to customize their site using simple HTML CSS and JS. I don't want to be mean about your friend, but I will second that its a glass ceiling, and you can't do any real developing with that plugin.