Thoughts on Macaw?

As I still remember the Dreamweaver era, I'm very skeptical of WYSIWYG editors, but I tried to approach Macaw with an open mind.

It didn't work out.

Macaw is pretty. But sadly, that's the only really nice thing I can say about it. The code can look nice enough if you stick with a simply structured site, but anything larger produces code that I wouldn't want to maintain.

But let's say they get that fixed. Let's assume Macaw 2.0 produces the nicest, most-readable, semantic code.

Web standards evolve very quickly. Different browsers out-do each other all the time by adding support for new standards and technologies. Creating content on the web also means pushing the limits sometimes. It's hard to do so when the software that you use to build such website doesn't have support for those latest technologies.

Macaw 2.0, or any other similar imaginary editor, would have to keep up, and it would have to keep up in an accessible way. Piling up support for new elements (with new properties) means adding new UI elements which would clutter the interface, making the app less useful to beginners (not that I advocate the usage of such tools for beginners). If you don't add support, people will still need to code.

Still, no matter how you make such an editor, you still need to provide access to the code if you want the content creators to be able to fine-tune things. Doesn't sound like the end of coding, to me.

I've designed websites both inside apps like Photoshop and inside browsers (writing code). I prefer writing code, because I often come up with ideas and concepts that I'd never think of if I was doing things visually. Writing code makes you think not only about what the site looks like, but also how it works. I don't think that insight can be replaced.

There was a lot of hype prior to Macaw's release. It was hard to avoid news about it. Now, after the release, you can hardly hear about it. People stopped mentioning it. I think that says a lot about this product.