What are they?

Well the acronym stands for What You See Is What You Get.
There are many programs that are WYSIWYG's, and there are also "drag and drop" programs. These programs were originally designed more for businesses, many of which have internal "Intranets", so that any old 'temp-agency' secretary can update their Intranet webpages.
YES you read that right, any old temp-agency secretary can use these programs to update webpages, whether they've had even one day of web-design training or not.
Even if they've never even surfed an internet page in their life!!!

But it didn't take long for the companies making these programs to realize they could market these programs to other people, who have zero web design training, so ANYONE can make a page on the World Wide Web.

Unfortunately these same people often think that now, since they made their own page, that they can "get rich" making pages for others. Frequently these same people have no idea what a good site should look like. Or, if something doesn't look right, they have no idea how to fix it, since they can't even read or understand the most basic of html coding.

Q: But how does that affect me, as long as I get a webpage what matters how it's written?

Well ask yourself this.
Do you want to pay top dollar to a "website designer" when they don't even know what they're doing without their WYSIWYG program? Would you call yourself a 'chef' and open a catering business, if all the 'cooking' you could do is opening a can of spaghetti-o's and slop it on a plate? I would think not!

Q: But still why does it matter, you might ask...

Well consider a few things.
First off you're paying dearly for someone to do something they're really not even trained to do, nor do they have any idea how to do it, other than having a program do it all for them.
Second off, you could download a free program of that type, and do the site yourself, or if you have the Netscape suite of programs on your computer, then you already have the program you need. It is a free part of Netscape, called Netscape Composer. It does a admirable job on webpages, if WYSIWYG pages don't bother you.

Q: But this is all well and good, but still why should it matter? you might ask...

• These programs, to make them idiot proof, will toss in tons of redundant coding.
  
• This bloats up the file size of a page, and if you're paying for your bandwidth, that extra UNNEEDED coding is costing you money!!!
  
• Some programs even toss in types of coding that certain browsers can't read, or display. This means some visitors to your site can't even see your pages! What good is a site if people can't see it? You will lose viewers!
  
• Only approx 60% of surfers use Internet Explorer, that means over 40% use other browsers, and you're losing 40% of your potential viewers!
  

Q: So what is the alternative?

Well the alternative is hiring someone who hand codes the pages.

The advantages of hiring a web-designer who hand codes:

• They know what they're doing.
  
• They're trained, whether formally or by experience, books and practice, to know how to code pages.
  
• They can look at code and know what they're seeing [and picture in their mind what the page is looking like].
  
• They understand what makes a nice sleek site layout, and what looks professional as opposed to something looking like Homer Simpson built it.
  
• Since coding is typed out by hand, you can bet there isn't a bunch of repetitious redundant coding. Thus your pages are at a bare minimum of bandwidth, and if you're paying for it, you're saving money!
  
• It also means you are paying someone for doing actual work! You're getting what you're paying for!