[kadendogthing]

Yes. I don't know why HN likes to pretend they're exceptions to patterns and processes that came about for a number of reasons.

In this specific case, the hand crafted HTML that I've come across in my lifetime is usually absolute garbage. I can normally see how the developer who wrote it thinks they're being clever or nifty, and dare I say it "clean", but it usually falls short and causes more harm than good.

So imagine we as an industry organically build tools to address this. 10 years later it's pretty good, but like 5 major websites still handcraft things because they have complicated user experiences with a broad user base.

We then get dork heads who see this, believe they're part of the exception, despite not having anything remotely close to the userbase or requirements of these websites, refuse to understand why certain things are the way they are, and think they're above these processes and frameworks despite not having invested any real time or effort into the skills necessary to justify not using these frameworks or fabricated HTML.

And the worst part is it's just HTML. And we still get it wrong.

TL;DR Programmers think they're better than they really are. Use the frameworks.

[inimino]

Honestly if you question the overall quality of hand-written HTML (by people who care to hand-write it) with the overall output of tools, I kind of wonder what parallel universe you come from.

I've never yet see anyone argue that the reason tools took over the writing of HTML is because hand-written HTML wasn't good enough.

[chasontherobot]

When HTML was hand written, it was largely awful. Just like anything people make. Bespoke HTML is now usually nice because the people who care to make it are the type of people who care about that sort of thing.

[inimino]

Hand-written HTML may have had the occasional error but when tools (remember FrontPage and Dreamweaver?) started to be used their output was dramatically worse. This was certainly not controversial at the time. Nowadays with templating languages and frontend frameworks (React is operating on the DOM but it is still just HTML elements in the end) there's still a human picking the elements and attributes that are rendered, even if there is a layer of indirection. So I don't really get the argument that hand-written HTML is bad, especially since it's ubiquitous. HTML was designed with hand-authoring in mind.

[kadendogthing]

> I kind of wonder what parallel universe you come from.

The one where I don't value bespoke development just because it's bespoke?

The universe where I have to actually quantify what's good and what isn't?

The worst kind of comments related to this discussion are always the ones that are insufferably offended that they can't out perform decades of experience and knowledge without doing anything.

>I've never yet see anyone argue that the reason tools took over the writing of HTML is because hand-written HTML wasn't good enough.

Check who you're listening to? It's a fairly common argument.

[inimino]

My position is based on decades of actually looking at HTML, writing it, creating a few web authoring tools along the way, and participating tangentially in HTML5 standardization.

I'm not insufferably offended by what you think I can or can't do (I couldn't care less) I just honestly can't fathom, after 20 years of looking at HTML produced by hand and by tools, how anyone could think the tools produce better markup if you're actually talking about inherent quality of the end result. Cheaper and faster, maybe, with a lower learning curve, sure, but better? I don't buy it.

[z3t4]

Some programmers confuse XML with semantic HTML. XML is hard to hand write, while semantic HTML is easy and forgiving. CSS on the other hand is more difficult, but its also much more powerful and still easier to hand-write compared to other XML-markups variants (native UI).