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jenadinetoday at 10:37 AM2 repliesview on HN

WYSIWYG designers seem convenient, but they're not that popular anymore for a reason. Writing UI in code is more flexible, easier to maintain, and works better as projects grow.


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alkonauttoday at 12:43 PM

WYSIWYG doesn't necessarily mean you are limited to using some designer and can't edit code. It's enough (and better) to have a live preview, than a full designer. It just means you see live what the code does, at the point when you write it, not later when you run it.

When hand-writing XAML or similar, it's great to see the UI created live. Like editing markdown and seeing the preview, versus editing markdown and not seeing the preview.

alerighitoday at 10:57 AM

In the end the WYSIWYG would produce an XML file that you can put under version control. All depends on the UI of the thing your are building, if what you are building only needs to be functional and nobody cares about the UI (that is always the case of internal use software, that needs to have a good UX but who cares if it has the Windows 95 style controls, like machine HMIs, ERP software, etc.) WYSIWYG (like Visual Studio) are good to write things fast and typically with a consistent layout. I mean, most companies are not building a videogame, and most people are still fine using things like AS/400, so...

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