Attacked for using WordPress

if I’m indeed wrong (which I personally don’t think so) about WordPress/CSS as an alternative web design platform.

Actually, you are completely wrong.
WP is NOT a web design platform. It is a publishing tool. Comparing it versus DW sounds quite… <cough> let’s not go there.

So, no, you do not use WP to “design” sites. I could say to someone using DW that I use PSPad and handcoding – those are comparable tools.

You can compare WP to other CMS scripts and publishing tools.

Don’t worry about. Doesn’t sound like a forum that I’d find very useful.

I like to play in Webmaster World. They’re grown-ups there (mostly -I think I shorted the curve a bit).

Thanks, cmarshall. I feel better.

It seems to me that whole dialogue muddles two separate issues – web design – and site construction.

WP fulfills many of the definitions of “design,” and tends to completely achieve the practical effect if not the literal definition attended by Web Designers. Only by semantics, sticking strictly to the artistic definition of design, can it be said that WP is not for designing websites. By most definitions, it is, and to the extent that it isn’t: websites can be created completely without Web Design, perhaps to the chagrin of some designers. I wouldn’t claim that I designed my themes (someone else did) but I designed my website in that I decided what information to display, what where and how. You can craft and create websites with WP, and that is what most people need in their web-making softwares, more than fancy never-before-seen borders and what-nots.

I wouldn’t worry about what other people say at you on the web. Some people just get edgy over the slightest thing.

https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Adesign

# Both the process and the result of structuring the elements of visual form; composition.

# A clear specification for the structure, organization, appearance, etc. of a deliverable.

# the act of working out the form of something (as by making a sketch or outline or plan)

# an arrangement scheme

# create the design for; create or execute in an artistic or highly skilled manner

Enjoy your website-making, whatever they want to call it. ??

What was said above is correct: Dreamweaver is a program for *making* websites (coding, writing CSS); lots of people use it. You could just as well use NotePad or some other (far nicer) text editor, if you’d a mind to learn how to hand-code. Either way (and even though I like Dreamweaver a lot for certain functions), it’s best to learn what at least the HTML and CSS code are doing; otherwise, *when* you run into problems, you won’t be able to fix them.

WordPress comes with “themes” and allows you to publish content displayed in a theme that you may or may not have altered. Themes are pretty much what are called “templates” elsewhere, where you’d create a template and then display your content in that template.

It may be that the confusion is that you *can* design WP themes in the admin panel, though I’d not like to do it that way, but it’s not a “design program” in any sense of the term.

If you’re looking to go public with your services, choose your method and tools and go forward. Personally, to me, $399 is not what I’d call expensive if it helps you to work faster and smarter.

By the way, Dreamweaver does not insert “lots of crap” (although it may have in many years past). It does write pretty clean code, but it won’t prevent you from writing bad code. That’s where knowing your code will save you.

Lastly (no, really), we all start where we start, and I find it offensive when people put down newcomers who have yet to learn the tools of the trade. But then, I’ve only had 10 years of experience, and hand-coded for years, so take the above with a grain of salt. ??

Sounds like a lovely forum to visit, full of friendly, helpful web developers with 13 years experience of how to be arrogant.

WP isn’t a website design tool, but nor does it claim to be. It’s a CMS (at best), and any presentation is down to you to design in whatever tool you see fit.

However, despite his 13 years experience, the chap seems to be overlooking that using wordpress is not exclusive of designing an impressive (non-boring) site. The flexibility to design the site as you wish still remains. Indeed the essence of a good publishing tool such as wordpress is that the tool pushes out data, which the site admin can display (through themes/templates) in whatever design they see fit, or even change the design at the touch of a button.

That said, I think you’re wasting your time trying to learn things at that forum, if that chap is an example of how they all behave.

13 years of experience? That’s 1994… wow. I started in 1997 and I thought that was old. In 1994 I couldn’t imagine doing web design with my 486.

Anyways, that guy is stubborn and lives to be validated.

One of the great joys of WP is that although strictly speaking design / css is somehow a discrete function and outside the remit of WP itself and the forum – huge numbers of the early adopters were web standards gurus, and as such the quality of design in the community, and the quality of the dialogue that surrounds it is higher by a long way than it is in a lot of dedicated design / css forums. And to his credit one of Matt’s many achievements was to open the door to proper web design for the masses.