in reply to Reverse engineering HTML

Your example looks to me like it has been created by some sort of WYSIWYG-tool - to which Adobe GoLive also belongs. I have to cope with a site which has been done entirely with GoLive, and the code behind it is simply abominable. If you find a tool to tidy the code, I'd be grateful to know more about it.

I still find html-editors such as HomeSite the most useful. It even offers a tidy-tool which is actually not too bad. When you write your own code you can keep it simple, to the point and correct - assuming you know your html. I do recognise, though, that you can't design a big project from scratch by writing code - you'd probably get to be a hundred and still not finished.

But when code is not just way too complex, but just plainly wrong, re-writing it is probably the best idea - right after shooting the author, as Vynce suggests.

-- cs

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Re: Re: Reverse engineering HTML
by BrotherAde (Pilgrim) on Jun 20, 2001 at 10:39 UTC
    Allow me to differ - I think it is not only possible, but indeed desirable to design any project by writing code by hand. Granted - it might take you longer, but the maintainability is just so much better, which is what really matters in big projects...
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      True, maintainability is what really matters in big projects - to us. But (too) often, it's the people who don't have to maintain it who decide on deadlines, and although I know that deadlines are at their best when they woosh past you, IRL it's not always that easy. Deadlines are there to be kept, or else you're out.

      I don't like this, either, and Ade, you know what site I'm talking about, and that I hate it as much as you did. But, I just had to program a whole new site of 16 pages (which is only the German version, French and Italian follow) in just under a week - and of course I got the last content one day before the site had to be up and running. And I did it all in writing the code by hand. But while fitting tables so that the stuff looks right, I sometimes almost gave in to temptation to re-install Dreamweaver and use it for that. (I didn't, and it's all done now - phew!)

      There's one more thing to say in favour of writing your own code: Applications like Dreamweaver or Adobe GoLive create tons of redundant code, and that makes file sizes go up. By writing your own code and keeping it clear, simple and to the point, you can keep file size down - and hence improve download time and attractivity (is that the word?) of your site.

      --cs

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