I want to start this reflection by being honest with the fact that I am incredibly biased regarding website development. When I started this class, I had limited coding experience since I had only ever used Python and had only spent about a week using HTML. While my experience with the HTML and CSS language is minimal, using oxygen and GitHub felt much more engaging than using the PSU site builder.
When you first start, coding is daunting and seems inefficient, but similarly to when I was using Python in high school, I started getting things to work, and it became fun again. It is nice being forced to work with the code because it makes learning how each line of code interacts a necessity, while on the PSU site, you can switch to the edit screen and change things like its word document. For people who want a website, the PSU site builder is an excellent option because coding becomes more optional than with GitHub, but for someone who wants a career in web design, getting down to the base elements of creating a website is the way to go.
I compared the site builder to a Microsoft Word document, and I did that because I think that is what they were trying to do. Word is a program most people understand, and if they do not, it is straightforward to learn, so making the edit page more like Word makes it much more accessible to the average person. For most people, going through the code and changing the CSS style sheet to center a line of text or picture will be much more complicated than the PSU site and its ability to change things without interacting with code. On the other hand, GitHub is much more complicated, from coding to website updates. It takes multiple steps to make changes to a website through GitHub, while on the PSU site, it is as easy as hitting the "Save Changes" button.
Some coding knowledge is good for both websites, but the PSU site goes out of its way to make coding unnecessary for those without experience. The only skills required for the PSU site creator are a basic understanding of Word and some formatting basics. For the GitHub site, a basic understanding of HTML, CSS, and GitHub commands will get you a long way to creating a functional website. I want to get better at visualizing how my code changes will impact my site, along with identifying the problems with my code.