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General Discussion

Posted by John Levy
John Levy
1,451 Points

Is it beneficial to use website templates?

I understand that you need to have a firm understanding on how to code but once you pass that stage are paying for website templates beneficial? I have made two websites from scratch so from doing this I am developing a firm understanding on how to code and now I am thinking when getting paid jobs using templates would be the way to go. Please dont mix this up with being to lazy to write the code from scratch. I am just thinking from a time and financial point of view that if it takes me three weeks to make one website from scratch if I use templates I could get through four websites in the same time meaning 4 times the amount of income. Is this a common practice and if not why do people make every website from scratch?

1 Answer

Oliver Duncan
Oliver Duncan
16,642 Points
Oliver Duncan
Oliver Duncan
16,642 Points

I would say that most people use templates, but not in the way you're thinking. Templates are a good design strategy to stay DRY and maximize speed and efficiency, and there are plenty of ways you can make your own.

For example, check out Pug (formerly Jade) template engine. Used in conjunction with other JavaScript frameworks, it's an extremely powerful way to help get your site up fast. Other languages have their own frameworks, like Rails for Ruby or .NET for C# (I could be wrong on that one, C# and .NET are mostly mysteries to me).

Bottom line, you don't need to buy templates. With practice and good design strategy, you'll increase your speed and efficiency in no time.