Recovery of code

pziecina  wrote Not wishing to inflame the discussion, anything can be called a 'niche' workflow, and any claim of 'its used by millions', does not carry any weight, as there are now over 1.5 billion web sites, so anything less than 200 million is for me a 'niche' workflow. For years there have been 'niche' workflows that have nothing to do with the clients best interests. But, for small sites who cares? After all wordpress, angular, wix, Dw, Webflow, Wappler, all create what could easily be called 'niche' code, (deliberatly using the word 'code' as opposed to 'workflow' now).

It has everything to do with the clients best interests in my opinion. It stands to reason the less 'popular' the workflow the fewer accessible developers there are going to be to maintain the code-base in the future. i.e. I could very quickly source a developer who uses vue, wordpress, bootstrap, etc. Its highly unlikely that anyone in my local area would have even come across App Connect let alone used it. Let's go by your figures, 200million, then App Connect would still be at the very bottom of the table of popularity.

Yes, niche workflows have been used througout the history of web-development. I remember some myself that virtually 'locked' you into a workflow, the website could only be maintained by those that used such poor methods. I don't really think its ethical to put your client into that possible situation. How much a website cost to build is immaterial, a client should expect to receive a product whereby if they had a reason to source a developer they could, without having to re-write large chunks of it, because a code-base is not widely recognised or used.

pziecina  wrote For me it is not the code these programs generate, or the workflow used by the developer(s), it is the understanding of the code generated that matters, (if one does not understand it, how can one say it is good?). As for the workflow, the philosophy should always be to keep it as simple as possible, both in requirements, and in recommending it to others, (if you cannot walk away from using a workflow, then come back to it 2 years later, without any problems, or learning how to use any part of it, it is overcomplicated).

Well understanding what it is you are using is of course a bonus and allows us to be called developers. I'm not sure what to call those that use workflows like wix, weebly etc because they are not developing anything and many have limited knowledge of the process.

I guess the only definition of 'good' in these cases is 'it works'. i.e. I don't really care, I get paid money, I'll take a chance that I will never be in a situation where I need to transport my lack-of-knowledge and skills to another job, because if you are you're limiting your job options severely.

Of course there will always be exceptions to the rules - those that are just in it for a short ride, those that are creating something for themselves, those that are too old and know they will never get another job within the industry.

If Ctrl or Cmd + Z doesn't undo what you did,  there is nothing DW can do to recover your code.  Do you have an older copy of the file on your remote server that you can recover the code from?

It's good practice to use Git version control and keep dedicated backup copies of your work somewhere just in case something goes wrong.  

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