No need to code your webpage yourself, says Microsoft – draw it and our AI will do the rest Microsoft has introduced an AI-infused web design tool called Sketch2Code that converts hand-drawn webpage mockups into functional HTML markup. It's not to be confused with a similar AirBnB project that has been referred to, unofficially, as sketch2code. For years, drag-and-drop web page building apps have been capable of much …
"Put some CSS, JQuery, or Ajax in there maybe the page could be interesting irritating."
Fixed it for ya. Except CSS is ok when kept to a minimum [and not some ginormous boilerplate abomination from robot hell, stored on a CDN, and only used on THAT web page].
I can imagine how many horrible things gone horribly wrong will end up on 'teh intarwebs' as a result of an AI tool that turns drawings into web pages.
"Too often these products are marketed to PHBs who are penny wise and pound foolish."
Oh yes.I knew it was near time to retire when the new PHB told me he did not know why it took days to produce new reports when he had seen a Microsoft tool that just allowed you to drag a database query onto a web page and have it populate a table that you resized with the mouse.
Query cost analysis and optimisation? Formatting? Validation?
I do remember that, yes. And I still think it is a good thing.
Anything which lowers the barriers to non technical people creating content on the web is good. And, in my opinion, 1000 functional websites with awful code is better than 1 website, say, facebook, with 1000 beautfilly efficiently coded pages.
Front-end web jockeys, freed from the burden of applying their expertise, can look forward to the creative satisfaction of quality assurance, a phrase which here means checking the AI's work.
But don't get too comfy. You'll be on the Help Desk soon after the release of the AI product that fulfills the QA function.
But the Help Desk have all been replaced with an AI chatbot that really only knows to tell people to restart their devices.
'Turn it off and on again' /'uninstall and reinstall the app' serves two important purposes on a helpdesk.
1 it actually fixes most of the callers' problems (either because it does; it gives them sufficient pause to work out the answer themselves or it just makes them go away because they never had a problem that's in scope for that helpdesk.
2 it tells the knowledgeable caller that the operator has reached the end of their script/expertise and it is time to ask for an escalation or give up.
"there'll be a lot of web developers suddenly out of work"
That seems rather doubtful. There's a lot more to web development than just arranging the visuals. This tool seems more suitable to allow non-web developers to design simple pages, and to relieve real web developers of the tedium of designing simple pages.
"Better learn some real programming languages guys..."
It sounds like you're confusing two different professions. While there is a bit of overlap in the Venn diagram, web developers and software developers are two different skillsets that require two different ways of thinking and working. Witness how terrible most software developers are at web development. Web developers aren't wannabe software developers who couldn't be bothered to learn <insert your favorite language here>.
"There's a lot more to web development than just arranging the visuals".
Cue the old joke about the drunk searching for his car keys under the street light. "Is this where you dropped them?" "No, but it's much easier to see here".
One of the classic principles of software design: "do the easy bits first, and forget about the rest".
"there'll be a lot of web developers suddenly out of work"
That seems rather doubtful. There's a lot more to web development than just arranging the visuals.
Yes, but those "web developers" whose sole qualification is three weeks at a Web Boot Camp will be soon having to be selling off their kidneys.
"Once you have drawn these wireframes on a whiteboard..."
I look forward to receiving a web page full of blurred scribbles and smudges using a colour palette of 6 faded colours. All enhanced by a background image from the last person who tried to use a permanent marker on the whiteboard.
more likely, three colors.(at least for the actual web page, transcribed from a white board maybe)
One is light blue, for everything that's supposed to look like a button or a symbolic link.
Next, there is blisteringly blindingly bright white, for 90% of the page, to keep you from being able to see anything on it [like staring directly into the sun].
Then there's the black text, with a font size that is too small and a font weight that's too thin to be easily read without magnification, by anyone over the age of 35. Like this edit box, right here. Hint hint hint. Now, where's my magnifying glass... everything looks like "blur" on bright white here.
But what if I want to design a black website with black buttons labelled in black, which when pressed cause a little black sign to light up in black to show that you have done it? You know, for that true Haggunenon look and feel.
Doffs hat to the late, great Douglas Adams
"But what if I want to design a black website with black buttons labelled in black, which when pressed cause a little black sign to light up in black to show that you have done it? You know, for that true Haggunenon look and feel."
Easy. Just forget to take the lens cap off when you photograph the whiteboard!
Next, there is blisteringly blindingly bright white, for 90% of the page, to keep you from being able to see anything on it [like staring directly into the sun].
I reckon there's a conspiracy among monitor manufacturers and web designers, to use as much white as possible, to decrease the useful life of the screen.
"I look forward to receiving a web page full of blurred scribbles and smudges using a colour palette of 6 faded colours. All enhanced by a background image from the last person who tried to use a permanent marker on the whiteboard."
Oh, so the same GUI designer as Windows 10?
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