Random Thoughts of Mike Bunton

In reading a number of forums and asking other people about how they code or accomplish their daily and weekly tasks - many people I find have lost the fine art of doing things by hand.

Before I get hate mail, I don’t use Notepad to code my sites, I use Dreamweaver 8. I learned to code by hand though using Notepad. Using Notepad helped me do two things. First, it saved me money not having to invest in a program like Dreamweaver (although now there are good free options like HTML Kit available for download). Second, I learned the right way to code. That is what is missing so much today that many coders have lost the ability to debug other peoples code.

Today, as I work I am always looking for ways to be able to speed up the coding process and I use code repositories and snippets from other people all the time. But I feel as though this is okay since I have learned how to code properly a long time ago.

So if you are starting out learning to code HTML, CSS, PHP, ColdFusion or any other lanugage remember this: learn it the best way by figuring it out the right way and not rely on those fancy editors that provide a false sense of security when you code.

Another thought regarding ‘doing it by hand’ was recently when I needed to install MySQL server application on my work laptop. I figured the best way to learn what MySQL was doing was to install it by hand - using the command propmt. All I had to do was a quick Google search for MySQL on Windows XP and very quickly found a very detailed step process of how to install MySQL. This really gave me a good understanding about MySQL and it only took an hour or so.

So what are you thoughts? What have found advantageous doing by hand? Share with me and let’s all continue to better ourselves and the products we produce by giving our clients the best quality products we can.

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