Now tools like Webflow, Framer, and AI-assisted builders can generate a layout in seconds. It’s genuinely impressive, and a little dizzying, how fast that’s moved.
I’m not reaching for most of it.
Not because it doesn’t work. Elementor and page builders like it produce a working online experience quickly, and for a lot of people that’s exactly the right trade. But it also means the person building the page usually doesn’t know what’s actually happening underneath it, and when AI-assisted coding entered the picture, that gap started to matter more, not less.
Here’s the thing I keep coming back to. AI-assisted coding is only as good as the person directing it. It can write a component, wire up a form, restructure a layout, all fast. What it can’t do is tell you whether what it wrote is actually right, whether it’s going to hold up, or where to look when something breaks six months from now. That part still needs a person who understands what the code is doing, not just someone who can describe what they want and hope the output matches.
So I’ve been going back to the fundamentals. Actually understanding HTML, CSS, the structure underneath a page, instead of routing everything through a visual builder that hides it from me. It’s old school, and it’s also exactly what makes AI-assisted coding worth using instead of worth fearing. I can read what Claude Code or Cursor hands back to me and know if it’s right. I know where things live. When a client needs something changed in six months, I’m not stuck waiting on whatever tool happened to generate it in the first place.
Right now I’m testing different setups to see what actually works best for me: different tools, different workflows, different ways of pairing hand-written structure with AI-assisted speed. Some of it’s slower than a page builder would be. All of it means I understand exactly what I’m shipping.
Honestly, it’s fun. There’s something satisfying about pulling old knowledge back out and using it differently than I did twenty years ago, this time with a tool that can move at a different speed, as long as someone who actually understands the code is still the one steering it.
That’s the same argument I make about Design Guidelines, just one layer down. A foundation only holds up if someone actually understands what’s in it. Whether that’s a brand system or the code running underneath a page, understanding beats convenience every time something needs to change.
If that’s how you think about your own foundation, I’d like to hear about it.
